


Home Again

by Cim0rene



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Adventure, Awesome Sarah Williams (Labyrinth), Dreams, Eventual Romance, F/M, Folklore, Jareth (Labyrinth) Backstory, Light Angst, Romance, they argue a bunch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 36,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25522795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cim0rene/pseuds/Cim0rene
Summary: Sarah Williams has grown up, but the Labyrinth won't leave her alone.  She goes about her day working with as kids as a therapist, looking for those who don't quite fit in this world like herself.  However, her kingdom is as great and she has been given special powers and there are consequences to your actions and it's all about to catch up with her.  The magical world is bigger than it seems and she'll need to team up with new friends and learn to trust old enemies and remember that not everything is as it seems in the Underground..............
Relationships: Jareth/Sarah Williams
Comments: 208
Kudos: 186





	1. Come on Feet

YMCA of Upper New York Summer Camp 1989

"I hate birds," she said, picking up a palm-sized rock from the side of the gravel driveway.

The girl tested its weight in her hands while the muscle memory of spring softball sessions woke up. With a calm intensity, she brushed a strand of long dark hair from her clear green eyes in preparation for the next moment. 

"I especially hate pompous, creepy, narcissistic, cheating gits who should have the common sense to know that owls are supposed to be nocturnal you glittery son of a -" and she let the stone fly from her hand.

She was out of practice and the shot went wide but the stone hit the tree with a satisfying thunk only a foot away from the poof of snowy feathers on the tree limb. A shower of leaves rained down and she gave a hearty “Ha!” as she stood, resolutely grinning in triumph until she felt a tug at her sleeve. She turned around to see a gaggle of campers looking at her with a mixture of confusion and awe.

"Okay," she said, clapping her hands together, "You all forget that you saw that and I'll give you an extra fifteen minutes before lights out tonight."

The girls looked around at each other, unsure of what to make of this offer. Some of the newer girls were ready to accept this strange peace treaty, but a few of the old girls were shaking their heads as they waited for what they wanted.

"I'll even let you play your choice of music before lights out."

Smiles erupted with a chorus of "yeahs" as the girls turned away from the scene of the crime, heads together trying to figure out how best to spend their fifteen-minute reward for a temporary bout of amnesia as they continue on their walk to the next activity.

Looking back to the tree she could see that the damned bird was still there. A stark white blotch in the dense summer foliage. She knew it would be there because it never left her alone when she asked nor when she yelled nor when she relived her days as a pitcher for the Regional Championship winning Softball team. Turning her back to the girls she raised both hands in front of her and stuck out her middle fingers and glared.

And the owl glared back.

She spun back to her group, color rising in her face as she muttered words campers weren't allowed to say let alone hear from the from their counselor despite how much she truly hated birds and Sarah Williams really, really hated birds. Especially that one.

*************************

Boston

1999

It was raining. Of course, it was. Today of all days Sarah had forgotten her umbrella so naturally, the clear spring day had turned into a torrential downpour the minute she reached for her backpack at the end of work. She had even taken a moment to flip through her bank book before stepping out into the humid storm, but alas counselors did not make enough to pay for both private taxis and food in this city. She resigned herself to damp Converse sneakers and frizzy hair as she clocked out for the day and trudged to the bus stop. She managed to nudge her way under the bus stop awning, which protected her from the water streaming over the yellowing plexiglass roof but did not protect her from the water park sized splash the bus made as it screeched to a halt in front of her.

By the time she made it from her bus stop to the brownstone apartment she called home, she was thoroughly cursing herself for not shelling out a little bit more rent for a closer apartment. The cheaper rent had been a trade-off for a longer commute, outdated plumbing cleverly advertised as “character” and a rather eccentric batch of neighbors that mostly didn’t seem to ask questions. She didn’t bother the budding musician upstairs who loved to practice at all hours of the night, she didn’t look twice at the guy from the basement apartment who was always coming home as she was heading to work looking like he lost every bar fight in the city and among them, she didn’t stand out as just a little too different.

That was one of the nice things about being in a big city, she didn’t stand out. It was hard to feel alone and singled out in a place that was just too big for connection. She had always been a little strange to most people, but in the years following her adventure it had grown worse. Though she tried to acclimate herself to a normal teenage life she could never quite break through. Instead, she had thrown herself into school and eventually college and her Master's Degree; people didn’t ask where your friends were when you were studying for a double major or writing a thesis or trying to establish yourself as a new professional in a big city.

In a way, her adventures had prepared her to throw herself into life this way. She had grown up quickly in those thirteen hours in the Underground, and she had returned feeling brave and valiant and ready to take on the world. She had saved Toby so maybe she could save more, so when she saw the flyer that spring looking for teenage counselors in training at a summer camp for kids in at-risk situations she knew what she wanted to do for the summer and by the end of the summer she knew what she wanted to do with her life.

She had thrown herself into working with at-risk youth, completing her school work so that she could set herself up as a therapist and counselor to those who didn’t feel quite right in the world and to those who, like her, had been to a place that felt like home and had to come back.

_Home_ , she thought with a sigh, as she made a small puddle on the black and white tiles of the floor by the mailboxes. “Home is where you make it” is what she told so many of her clients as they worked through abandonment issues, PTSD, and other less healthy coping mechanisms in their weekly hour allotments in her aging basement office uptown that smelled of pleather and car exhaust. The later was thanks to the alley its single window opened and a never-ending supply of delivery trucks that were clearly not worried about global warming. 

This was her home, her little one bedroom on the third floor with the popping radiator filled with books and cups of half-drunk tea and pots of half-dead house plants. It was where she was meant to be. Sarah wrung out her long hair adding to the tiny lake on the tile and adjusted her backpack as she looked up the aging, well worn wooden stairs. Her backpack was full of files and she hoped she had enough coffee to make it through them all. She let out one more futile sigh as she whispered to herself and started to climb the stairs.

“Come on feet, let's go.”


	2. Of Coffee and Kings

It felt like the alarm went off only seconds after she had closed her eyes. Her eyes stung and her mouth felt dry and Sarah felt more tired than when she had laid down her head after closing the last manilla envelope last night. She buried her head under her pillow and let loose a small roar of exasperation. She had known that she was in for a late-night when she packed her bag from work, she knew that coffee after eight was a mistake and she knew exactly why she felt like she had gotten no sleep.

As she climbed into bed she had seen that damned owl, shiny in the moonlight, perched on the roof of the next building. Sarah’s petitioning to add bird deterrent spikes to the building was one of those things her fellow residents didn’t ask too many questions about and as she bolted out of bed to close her windows she wondered if she could start a neighborhood-wide anti-bird initiative.

She never saw it flying, rather she’d turn around the corner and there it would be. Sitting in a tree or in the alcove of a building sitting preternaturally still and, if it was possible for an owl to do so, looking annoyed. As if it wanted her to know it had somewhere else it wanted to be. It was nights like this that she wished she had opted for a bb gun instead of pepper spray for her walks home at night.

She should be used to it by now because it was always like this whenever she spotted him. Sometimes he left her alone for months at a time; in fact, there had been ten blissful months between the end of high school and the beginning of college when she hadn't seen that pompous white bird at all. There had been no weird, half-remembered dreams. No strange things spotted in the corner of her eye causing her breath to catch in the back of her throat. No feelings like she wasn't quite alone in an empty room, or worse that she was apart from everyone else in a crowd, just a little out of sync and out of step with reality.

The most irritating part was that that was all it ever was; she had never actually laid eyes on the Underground's petulant monarch since that last battle of wills over ten years ago and now, sometimes, she wished she had. She would sit up at night, adding whiskey to her drink of choice, imagine all the right words she would choose if she could face him now. No stumbling over half-remembered lines this time; now she would be clear and strong in telling him in no uncertain terms to fuck off.

But no, after months of quiet, restful sleep she had caught a glimpse of him last night and knew that that night's rest would be anything but peaceful. She couldn't even remember her dreams, which was okay - when you had an otherworldly stalker with a penchant for dream invasion she'd happily take not remembering, but it felt like she had been dancing or scaling mountains all night. Running her fingers through her hair, trying to detangle the knots, she let out an annoyed sigh because knowing him it was probably a combination of the two.

Sarah stumbled her way into the bathroom and appraised herself in the mirror. Her long brown hair had come out of its messy bun as she tossed and turned in the night and now it hung halfway down to her left shoulder while the right side frizzed with static. Her green eyes were puffy and ringed with dark circles. She'd have to pull out the heavy-duty concealer today.

"Damn pest could at least be enough of a gentleman to drop off a coffee when he does his creepy bird thing," she said to herself in the mirror and sighed. The cheap bulk coffee in her kitchen would have to do.

*******************************

"Well if it isn't my favorite person! Morning General!" The voice that filled her ears was deep, strong and way too damn chipper for this time in the morning. She felt the other half of the bus seat next to her shake as he sat down just a little too close to her. “Wow, you look like crap this morning.”

"Hector, I don't care how good you are at your job, I will personally kill you if you don't let me finish this cup of coffee in silence," Sarah said without opening her eyes.

She could see him in her mind's eye perfectly, facing her with his coffee cup in one hand and some kind of pastry in the other, just staring at her with the biggest grin on his face. It was Tuesday, so it was a raspberry danish.

Hector was her favorite coworker, though she wouldn’t admit it to him. They had met a few summers ago during her last summer as a camp counselor. He was the kind of person you could hear coming from a mile away; the type who reminded everyone of a favorite uncle or neighbor or brother. He had a knack for diffusing tense situations and always had a quip or a story ready, usually about his Grandmother who quickly became something of a legend around the camp. He was loyal and affable to a fault, but right now he was being a pain in the ass and was loving every minute of it.

"You're going to sit there and stare at me until I'm done aren't you?" Sarah asked, still not opening her eyes.

"Just like I do every morning chief."

"God, I really hate you in the morning."

Hector let out a deep laugh, "You've been saying that for five years Sarah, and it’s no more true now than when you first threatened my life for being a morning person."

She took one more long swallow of her coffee and opened her eyes, "Okay, there I can deal with you now.”

As she expected he was much too close to her, his large brown eyes fixed on her as he slowly chewed his danish. She furrowed her brow; it was never a good thing when Hector was quiet, even while chewing.

“What?” She knew her voice sounded defensive so she turned her head to glance out the window.

“You didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Obviously,” she retorted without turning back.

“Bad dreams?”

It was her turn to be quiet as she closed her eyes, trying to remember, but only seeing swirls of color and flares of light, “Yeah, something like that,” she said as she pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed the latent colors from behind her eyes. “I was up late last night going over the files for my clients today and I must have overdone it with the coffee.”

“That’s all? Just up late doing work you don’t have to do?” He nudged her a little in the side and she could feel the color rising up her neck.

“Yes, that’s it. Too much coffee, too much work. That’s it.”

Hector took a long swig from his paper cup and popped the last of the danish in his mouth.

“Well,” he mumbled over a mouth full of bread and jam, “sounds like your night was a real…”

“Don’t you dare say it, Hector.”

His smirk reached from ear to ear. “Hoot.”

Sarah let her head fall forward into the back of the seat in front of her, as she muttered, “I hate you.”

He reached out a large hand and patted her on the back. “But not as much as you hate that bird.”


	3. No Good Very Bad Day

“Sarah,” Hector said as he shot his empty coffee cup into a nearby dumpster. “You need to do something about it. It’s been what, ten years now? Time to get a restraining order or at least call in animal control.”

She fiddled with the clasp that held back her hair. “It’s been thirteen years and if there was something I could do I think I would have thought of it by now and I haven’t unless you’re hiring out Abuela? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you don’t seem to have this problem.”

Hector let out a hearty laugh, “Of course I don’t … no one crosses Abuela. Las Papas didn’t stand a chance against her, but it sounds like your fine feathered friend is a bit harder to scare off.”

Sarah smiled at her friend, even after all these years it was strange to have these conversations with someone who wasn’t a licensed professional who thought she was just a child with an overactive imagination and a lack of parental attention. She had learned quickly to keep her thoughts and experiences to herself, thinking she was the only person in the world to have an experience like hers, but that was until her the year she met Hector. 

Even now she found it hard to put into words how she knew when she found a Returned person, it wasn’t an aura and the heavens didn’t open up and announced their presence, she just knew. She felt drawn to the person and that morning when she had entered the cafeteria to meet the new hires she just knew that Hector was different. 

She had to give him credit, he hid it much better than she did, but it was there, that sense of being slightly out of sync with everyone else. She supposed this was where the idea of being “fairy touched” came from. Once you left you never came back completely the same.

It had taken a few days of dancing around the issue and vague questions before they realized the truth and from then on they were inseparable. It was that day that Sarah realized she wasn’t quite as alone and somewhere out there were more people just like her.

She relaxed a bit, “You’re right, maybe Animal Control has a magical pest disposal network.” 

********************

Looking back Sarah should have known everything was about to go wrong. The day had started out fairly routine. Most of her sessions of the day were normal; kids with issues not caused by anything out of this world - divorces, anger management, undiagnosed learning disorders, and everything else which typically filled her day. She did have one of “her” cases today, a little six-year-old boy who had been referred to her by another therapist who couldn’t make headway with what she called his “overactive imagination”. 

The first time she met Trevor she had met with his parents, worried that his fantastical stories and insistence on imaginary friends were going to negatively impact him in first grade that fall. She had listened dutifully and taken notes and then asked to chat with Trevor privately and while his parents filled up on instant coffee from the waiting room upstairs she leaned close to Trevor.

“I believe you,” was all she needed to say and the boys’ eyes widened and she knew he saw her, felt that same tug of a person returned from a great adventure.

Trevor hadn’t been wished away, rather he had wandered away from his parents during a family reunion and gotten lost in the woods. In true form, he remembered being gone much longer than the hour his parents had spent looking for him. He had been found by a forest spirit who had told him to call her “Mama Padura”. She had guided him to a spring for water and he had played with forest sprites until she returned him, happy and whole to his parents who had only just realized he was gone. Trevor spoke of Mama Padura like a beloved grandmother and spent many afternoons playing with the sprites he could still see in his backyard. His adventures made Sarah smile, and she let him talk to his heart's content about the adventures he had with his little friends.

Now they spent their sessions listening to his stories while she worked with him on how to bond and play with children who couldn’t see little creatures hiding in the bushes around the playground.

No, it wasn’t until the afternoon that the day started to really go pear-shaped.

**********

"What now, Mr. H?"

"Caught her at receptionists phone again," he said bluntly. Her afternoon session, a young girl named Yvonne stood behind him. Yvonne wasn't a Returned, just a normal teenage girl whos parents couldn't get their act together. Sarah had been working with her for a year to manage her emotions and help give her healthy coping skills.

"Come on in Vee, have a seat," Sarah said motioning to the cracked fake leather couch opposite her desk. The girl in her doorway made no move, arms crossed defensively in front of her chest, staring intently at her shoes. "Okay, you can stand if you want."

Sarah moved in front of her desk and leaned back on her heels. "Trying to call your dad again?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly as she pulled on a section of her hair, “Maybe.”

"Vee, girl, we've talked about this. It's a no-contact order and it has to go both ways. It's for your safe-"

"No! No, it's not! He wants to talk to me!"

"Yvonne, I know that might be what it seems like, but please -"

"It's not fair!" The girl screamed, kicking her leg out, sending a desk chair crashing into Sarah's shin. Sarah sucked in a deep breath, she'd let that hurt later and counted down from ten. "He wants to talk to me. I know he does. He still wants me; I don't care what that stupid judge says. I know he wants me! Nobody else does, but he does. I want to go home! Screw this place. I hate it here, no one likes me. You don’t even want me here, just let me call my dad and go home!"

Yvonne sunk to the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks, letting her thick dark hair make a wall over her face and arms. Hector knelt down and put a hand on her shoulder and she pushed it away and he backed up slightly.

"Vee, that's a lie you’ve got stuck in your head,” he said softly. “Don't you listen to that crap. You're wanted here. Your friends want you here. Lots of people want you to be right where you are."

"I wish," the girl sobbed under her hair. The words always made the hair stand up on the back of Sarah's neck and her knuckles went white as she gripped the desk tighter. Hector’s eyes shot up to her, neither of them used that word lightly. "I wish he'd come and get me and take me home like he promised to do. I wish he'd take me away."

Sarah let out a small bit of the tension in her shoulders, those weren't the right words. Sarah didn’t know if there really were “right words”, but she knew enough to know that Vee didn’t really, truly mean what she was saying. 

She knelt next to the girl, "Vee, I'm sorry. I'm sorry he promised you things that haven't come true. I really am. I know it's hard when what we want and what we wish for don't line up. Everyone here, and I mean everyone from Mr. H to myself know what it's like to feel like no one cares. I know it's hard to understand, but if you're not supposed to be calling your Dad it's for a good reason. I need you to trust me, okay? You're not in trouble, you just slipped up. It's not the end of the world, but I'd like you to not try that again, okay?"

Yvonne didn't make any movement to signal agreement, but she also didn't move away or start yelling again.

"I can take it from here Hector, we're good."

Hector nodded in agreement, one of the best things about him was that he always knew when to stay and when to go. He didn't say anything more to Yvonne, he never had corny lines or crappy affirmations, he just put a hand on her shoulder and gave the girl a squeeze. It said everything he needed to say. The door clicked on his way out and Sarah let the silence hang as she reached in the top drawer of her filing cabinet. She could almost sense the girl perk up just a bit at the sound of the metal scraping as it opened. All the kids knew that the top drawer was where Sarah kept the good stuff.

She dropped the bag of candy on the chair next to the girl. "Take your time Vee, we don't need to talk about anything you don’t want to today. We can just chill out for today’s meeting," she busied herself with shuffling some paperwork around.

The girl was digging through the bag of candy, looking for the orange Starbursts most likely, when the phone rang.

"Hello? This Sarah Williams, licensed …. Hello?" She was about to hang up the receiver when a voice finally spoke up.

"Hello, Sarah, we need to speak to Yvonne," the voice on the other end replied. Sarah straightened a bit in her chair.

"You’re going to need to be a lot more specific than that. Let’s start with who is this?" Years of dealing with kids with messy custody agreements, no contact orders and court files that climbed to her knees had made her careful on the phone.

"We need to talk to her. She is wanted elsewhere." Sarah held the receiver a little farther from her ear, the feedback or connection was grating.

"Maybe you didn't hear me, who are you?" She was on her feet now and she could tell Yvonne could sense her tension too as the girl stopped sifting through the bag of candy not looking at Sarah, but on alert.

"We must tell her she is wanted elsewhere, we wish -"

That was the last straw.

"Like hell, you will!" Sarah shouted as she slammed the receiver down.

Sarah didn't realize she had been holding her breath until Yvonne spoke, "What was that? Was it for me?"

Sarah took a deep breath and brushed her hair back out of her face. "What? No, it was some punk just trying to be creepy. We get calls like that more than I'd like. It's nothing to worry about."

Yvonne met her gaze, dark brows furrowing ever so slightly waiting for Sarah's face to show signs of her lie. Sarah stared back, "Don't worry about it. We can usually reverse search the numbers and it's almost always some bored twelve-year-old in hiding in their basement. 

"Sorry… about using the phone. I know I'm not supposed to, but sometimes… sometimes I feel like no one would give a crap if I just disappeared into thin air. Like no one would even notice."

"Well, you know what I always say about junk like that right?"

Vee smiled, a pained little smile, but a genuine one, "That it's bullshi-"

"Yep. And what else do I say?"

"You didn't hear me say that?"

"Bingo."

Later, after Yvonne had eaten all the Starbursts and they had gone over her prompts for her journal for the week and she’d sent Yvonne home with her aunt Sarah let out the breath she’d been holding in since she slammed down the phone receiver. It wasn’t just the phone call that should have set her on edge and raised her hackles, it wasn't the voice on the line - the one that sounded a little off, too monotone and with a strange sharp edge she just couldn’t place.

The phone calls always shook her a bit more than she liked. Sometimes it was just bored, stupid kids calling in a prank, but other times it would be a family member who wasn’t supposed to call and would be too desperate, cruel or messed up to care what they said.

Sarah was brave, her time Underground had taught her that, but she preferred her adversaries where she could see them and stare them down. Dealing with voices through a phone rattled and distracted her more than she liked. She shuffled around her files and after weighing a stack in her hand, left tomorrow's cases on the desk. She walked to her bus stop with her eyes on her shoes, mulling over that weird voice on the phone. 

If she had been less distracted she might have noticed that a large black crow had been perched in the tree just across the street from her office. If she had been less distracted she might have noticed that the crow had watched the whole ordeal intently. If she had been less distracted she definitely would have noticed that the crow smiled as it suddenly disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mama Padura is a real creature in mythology, a gentle and benevolent spirit who helps children who have gotten lost in the woods.
> 
> "Fine Feathered Friend" is a shout out to Lixxle, though Rosalinda will, most likely, not be making an appearance.


	4. Bad Dreams

That night Sarah dreamed of birds, not snowy white owls this time. No, this was a dream filled with crows. 

She was standing in what looked like the soccer field at her old summer camp and she could hear the crunch of the summer scorched grass under her feet. In front of her, perched on the soccer goals was an unnerving line of stark, black crows. She stared at them and they stared back, tilting their heads back and forth, but always keeping her insight. Suddenly the birds snapped to the side in a painful unison, the wind around her whipped up, blowing grit into her eyes and pelting gravel against her shins.

Something caught the corner of her eye and she turned her head slightly, not trusting the incongruous line of birds to be out of her sight. Standing next to her in the field was Yvonne. No, not just Yvonne, it was a line of her kids stretching back as far as she could see. Each child stood rigidly at attention, each with a despondent look across their face.

From the goal post, the largest of the crows stretched out its wings and leaped to the ground. She could see now that it was nothing like a normal bird, it was much larger and it wasn’t shaped right. It looked as if it had been shaken apart and put haphazardly back together and as it moved with an awkward gait across the lawn towards the girls it seemed to crack and bend around itself. Its legs bent at unnatural angles that jutted from too many joints. Its wings grew large and cumbersome while it's black feathers bent like jointed fingers, flexing in and out. It tried to pull itself up to standing, but the spine collapsed in on itself, but still, the creature pushed against its rebelling body and all the while it cawed, steady and grating to Sarah's ears. The unnerving sound escaped from a twisted black beak lined with jagged teeth and as it twisted its head this way and that it gave a gross facsimile of a smile. With each outburst the remaining crows on the goal post joined into a cacophonous chorus, growing louder and more shrill by the moment.

Sarah tried to move, but her feet felt like lead; they dragged along the ground, lazy and unyielding.

She must get to the kids before it does.

Her feet drug upon the ground, carving ditches deeper and deeper with every step.

As the creature reached out with one disjointed wing toward the girl she could hear words in the clamor of the crows. The broken finger-like feathers plucked at strands of Yvonne’s dark hair but the girl made no attempt to pull away.

_ Say. Say. Words. Say. _

The ground was up to her waist and then her shoulder, but still, Sarah pressed forward trying to claw at the dirt in front of her. The dry, parched soil crumbled in her fingers and blew back into her eyes and mouth.

_ Say Right. Right. _

_ Words. Say. _

Desperate she threw her arms up as the dirt around her began to cave in.

_ Say. _

_ Right. _

_ Words _ .

Above her, just out of reach Yvonne looked over her shoulder with eyes full of sadness and despair. Sarah opened her mouth to scream her name, but the hole sucked her down deeper, filling in her mouth, eyes, and nose as it cut off any sound she could hope to make.

The last thing she saw before the dark pit swallowed her whole was that toothed beak curving into a predator's smile.

_ Your kingdom is ... great. _


	5. The Committee

"Hey Sarah, we need you at the front door," Hector spoke as soon as Sarah lifted the receiver to her ear.

Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, "Police? Lawyers?"

"No." Sarah let out a relieved sigh. It was rare, but occasionally an outburst needed more direct intervention. "But there are people here I think you need to talk to."

"Be right there, Hector."

Sarah pulled her suit coat, even though it was typically warm in her cramped little office the weather had been threatening rain all day and a cold wind had blown in. It was odd for this late in the spring when normally the city was starting to feel humid and uncomfortable in the middle of the day. A steady wind was shaking the tops of the trees and whipped her hair from her ponytail into her eyes as she stepped out of the door and onto the front stoop. She scanned the buildings around her quickly; not looking for owls she realized but looking for crows. Her dream last night was still in her mind, so vivid and intense that she had woken drenched in sweat with her heart racing. Hector stood on the bottom step of the stoop with a posture that said he was ready to play defense. On the sidewalk stood three figures in black suits in front of an equally black car and she couldn't help but quote Shakespeare in her mind.  _ First thing we do, kill all the lawyers. _

Lawyers were never a welcome sign at the office. They meant court cases that shook the kids from weeks of foundation building. They delivered the news about jail for parents, altering foster care arrangements, dissolved guardianships, and sometimes death. Lawyers were never a good sign.

"How can we help you?" Sarah said, voice rising to be heard over the wind; she didn’t step out on to the stairs but maintained position from the top of the stoop.

"Ms… Williams?" asked the suit in the center; a rather non-descript person with close-cut hair and an androgynous cut to their suit. "We are from the Committee."

Sarah glanced over at Hector as he shifted ever so subtly on his feet.

"And what committee would that be?"

"We are from the Committee and we're here to speak to Ms. Henderson-Cortez," the person replied as Sarah ground her teeth. She hated being handled.

"Well, folks, we're going to be standing here forever unless I can see some credentials."

"We need to speak to Ms. Henderson.” Yvonne. Sarah’s heart dropped. It wasn’t her day for a session thank goodness, “It is urgent."

"Listen, buddy, I wasn't born yesterday. You either show me something official or my associate over there will finish speed dialing the cops. I suggest you stop messing around and do as I say or leave."

"If you would just let us in, we wish to -" At that, both Hector and Sarah were on the move toward the stoop.

Hector was on it; it was good to have someone around who understood boundaries and invitations and right words and Sarah definitely had not said the right words. He put himself between the suits and her in a fluid motion. He wasn’t a big guy, in fact, he was a few inches shorter than she was, but he knew how to make himself take up space. He simply stepped away from the banister and on to the middle of the step.

“This building is classified as a private medical facility. Which means," she said balling her hands into fists at her side, hoping they wouldn’t call her bluff, “you have no power, I mean, you have no authority here. We're done talking. I don't know who you think you are, but unless you want to have a nice long conversation with my friends over at the station you'll get in that shiny car of yours. Now."

They made no move to go, and Sarah’s gut tightened; it was a rare bunch of bother that didn’t shoot away at the mention of involving the police.

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” she tried again, drawing herself up and bracing her hands at her hips. “This is my building and unless you can give me a damned good reason you have no power here.”

Sarah focused on the trio beneath her, ignoring that as she spoke the wind picked up and Hector gave a small shudder like a finger down his spine.

The person she had been speaking to narrowed his or maybe her eyes and Sarah noted that they were slightly different colors. The air hung still for just a moment too long.

"We were mistaken."

"That's what I thought."

The suits turned and climbed back into their car, but Sarah refused to move from her spot by the door until the car disappeared around the corner.

Sarah and Hector walked back to her office in silence and Sarah's mind was spinning. They had dealt with a lot of confrontation at those doors over the years. From the damnable lawyers and distraught grandparents to drugged-out parents. Everyone who worked there had at some point handled threats, more than a few screaming matches, rocks thrown, and even a threat of a gun in the car. She’d only been unpacked in her basement office for a few weeks when they first had to call in extra security, but she'd never been more shaken than she was right now. Every atom in her body cried out in a fight or flight response to everything about those people. Everything about them, from the cadence of their voices to the stillness of the air around them to those odd, mismatched eyes was both very familiar and very wrong. Something was wrong and she knew what she'd have to do to get some answers.

She and Hector debriefed the head of security, a gruff, but kind man named Clyde who loved to tell anyone who would listen about his days as a boxer and gave him a description of the car and the people and had decided to call out of the rest of the day. Sometimes you just needed to trust your gut and not be around if someone came back looking for you.

They noticed the cop car a few inconspicuous spots down as they walked to the bus stop. Clyde could be a bit of a nostalgic distraction sometimes, but the man had the right connections.

Hector rocked on his heels as he stood with her for the bus, watching her dark brows furrow in thought.

“So are we going to talk about the elephant dancing the cha cha around the room,” he asked, keeping his voice casual, but low.

Sarah leaned her head back, letting her shoulders roll and her neck pop.

“Those were some creep dudes and they felt … I dunno wrong, Sar.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just that I don’t know … it wasn’t like the feeling we get with Trevor or Kamilah or the others but was it wrong.”

The silence hung thick between them.

“Your words…” Hector trailed off, and Sarah tensed. “When you told them to fuck off...it felt like ‘right words’. Something happened there Sar.”

Sarah gnawed on her lower lip a bit. “No,” she said unconvinced herself. “No, they weren’t ‘right words’… they were just serious words? Strong words? You know we have to put on an act sometimes… it was just a really convincing one.” 

It was a really convincing act if you ignored that feeling of electric charge that hung in the air as the creeps had slinked back to their car. If you ignored the deja vu that brought you back to lights that wouldn’t turn on and skittering sounds in the dark. 

“You know you could ask…”

“Don’t even think it, Hector, we’ve been over this a hundred times.”

Hector gave a little non-committal ‘hmph’ in the back of his throat; he had known her long enough to know when her stubborn streak would kick and nothing got her there faster than anything that reminded her of her run. They stayed silent, lost in thought as the bus came, and took them home.

****************

The microwave beeped and Sarah removed the same cup of tea for a second time that night. She had lost track of time since she got home, lost in thought, going over the creep dream from the night before and standoff that afternoon. She wandered aimlessly around her apartment; flopping on her ancient futon, pacing the floor, picking off dead leaves from her much-maligned row of ferns on her window. She opened a box of crackers only to abandon them moments later for an apple and then a bit of cold leftover spaghetti. And still, she thought and thought, but her thoughts circled her head like her feet on the floorboards, never landing, never sticking.

She didn’t want to be involved in anything on that side. It was Hector and her first rule - they stayed out of it. They sought out those who needed her help to re-acclimating to life on the Aboveside again. They listened to their stories and believed them and helped them forward, but nothing more than that.

She took out a notebook, trying to make notes and graphs and even a Venn diagram appeared at one point, but she had no idea how to make sense of it. She had no clue how to proceed. She was stuck trying to put together a puzzle when she didn’t even know if the box had all the pieces.

_ Sometimes the way forward…  _

No, she bid her mind to stop. She clenched her eyes trying not to let the memories pop into her hat… no head, into her head. Damn it.

_ … is also the way back. _

“Fuck,” she said as she banged the cup of tea on to the table next to her.

Say your right words indeed. They were simple words that she needed to write and still, her stomach turned in knots for another twenty minutes until with a deep breath she scratched out a message on her notepad and propped it in the window.

_ We need to talk _ , it read.  _ Tonight. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my favorite chapters is coming up and you know who finally makes an appearance... I return to the working world tomorrow so I'm hoping it will be up on Wednesday.


	6. Falling

13 years ago

The Shattered Castle

**_Through dangers untold…_ **

The world swam in and out of view.

**_And hardships unnumbered…_ **

Static prickled along her skin and every hair on the back of her neck stood straight

**_I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City…_ **

Say your right words, a voice echoed in her head. Right words, what were the right words? Yes? No? Never? Always? Forever?

**_To take back the child that you have stolen..._ **

She fought to keep her mouth moving as words melted into her mind, pushed to the front of her thoughts, and tried to fall like rubies from her lips. 

Fear. Love. Promise. 

No! Those weren’t the words. 

She had the words from the book… What were the words to the book?

**_For my will is as strong as yours..._ **

There were too many words, too many promises, too many wishes. 

She wanted to go home. 

She had to go home.

Which way was home? 

Forward... back... up... down. Here? No, there.

Her eyes glazed over as she tried to concentrate, even as her breaths felt shallow and her knees shook beneath her. 

She could see the hand stretched out in front of her; and innocent gesture, yet it swirled with magic. 

It seemed so, so familiar... it seemed so...

**_And my kingdom as great..._ **

The world contracted as she spoke and deep with her something splintered, the pain breaking her out of her reverie and snapping her attention to the pale eyes in front of her. 

And as she spoke that splintered thing shattered as she looked into those cruel eyes…

Those sad eyes.

**_You have no power over me._ **

And then the world fell down…

****************************

Sarah splashed some water on her face as she contemplated how, exactly, did one prepare to confront a bad dream? She'd worked so hard since her teenage escapade Underground to be careful; careful with what she thought, read, and even what she ate before bedtime. She was the quintessential fun hater in college who never had a wild night at the bar or a hazy afternoon in the dorm. She always wanted to be in control and was always worried that if she gave in just a little bit she'd lose that tenuous bit of power she claimed to have. Hector had given her the hardest time about it initially, his escapades not involving nearly as many life-threatening moments. 

And here she was about to throw it all out the window. Hopefully, it would be worth it; she needed answers and she needed them now.

She’d spent years trying to forget what had happened, but it was hard to forget knowing so much more. It wasn’t that she made the mistaken wish and ran the Labyrinth that really got to her. She had forgiven herself for putting Toby in danger as she grew older and well, on rare occasions she could reflect on the run and the wonderful, but terrible things she encountered as a thrilling adventure. It wasn’t what she felt damaged by the experience, it was that gnawing feeling that something had shattered and never come back. 

There was also the issue that it’s hard to be enamored of the real world when you’ve stepped across a threshold to the fantastical. Teachers never captured her attention the same way as the Wise Man did. Friends were never quite as loyal or as brave. 

She remembered coming home from prom to her eager stepmother ready to listen to an enraptured teenage girl recount the most wonderful night of her young life and Sarah couldn’t quite muster up the enthusiasm Karen wanted. It wasn’t that the dance hadn’t been fun and a night to remember, but how could a high school party and awkward teenage dancing compare to being waltzed around a magical ballroom? How could a mall department store dress compare to a confection of spun sugar and glass? And though she was loathe to admit it even the boys, and later the men, she dated was hard to compare to her experiences there; not that she had really believed any of the honeyed words he fed her were sincere, but knowing that those words existed would mean she always went home just a little disappointed. 

This, of course, is what had guided her career; the desire to help others fit in, to adjust better than she had. Discovering that she could find other Returned children had been a turning point; a way to keep her sanity while placing herself with a firm purpose in this world.

Hector didn’t understand her reluctance to connect with the Underground. He saw the connection to his part of the other as a gift, a connection to something bigger and amazing in the world. She could never quite explain exactly what had been at stake in those final hours. What had been offered and what had been refused. In fact, most of the time she had a sinking feeling that she didn’t fully understand all of it

And so she waited and waited and paced around her room for an hour before she realized that she really should have been more specific about the time in her note.

In a huff, she opened her bedroom window and scanned the building across the alley and there in the dark perched a snowy white owl. Just like a hundred times before Sarah glared at it; of course he wouldn't make this easy for her. And just like a hundred times before, the owl glared back. 

"Well come on," she hissed into the dark, "I haven't got all night."

The owl seemed to think for a moment before stretching its wings and gliding down to rest on her windowsill and came no further.

"Seriously," Sarah let out an exasperated moan. Of course, he would make this as difficult and drawn out as possible. "Are you waiting for an invitation, your majesty?"

The owl ruffled its feathers and paced sideways along the chipped paint of the sill.

"I really hate you," Sarah sneered in response. "Fine, will you please come in so we can talk?"

In the moment, the space of a blink, that the words left her mouth the bird was gone.

The air swirled around her and a few slivers of magic glittered around the hands that still gripped the window frame, knuckles turning white.

"Well, my precious thing, I thought you'd never ask," came a voice, as smooth as silk, from behind her. It came a little closer and she could feel the hair on her neck rise, "Tell me now, did you miss me?"

Sarah let herself take a deep, centering breath and drew it in through her nose and willed it down to her fingers and toes. She gathered every measure of reason and rationality in her body, repeating in her old mantra in her mind - _you have no power over me_ \- as she spun on her heels and slapped him squarely across the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, my boy, you don't know what you've walked into...


	7. Words Words Words

The Goblin King, for once in his long life, was speechless. 

For a moment the air in the room seemed to shift and Sarah thought she could make out the outline of a cape flaring behind him and the hint of the dark armor he had once worn to torment her in darker tunnels shaping around him. The room seemed to contract, the lights dimmed and for the briefest of moments she was worried; then he breathed out and it all faded back to reality. 

There he stood in front of her, still all sharp lines and wild hair, still with a flair for the dramatic, still a little otherworldly and disconcerting, but intriguing at the same time. She couldn't help but notice that he appeared a little more sedate in his choice of clothing; a little less glam rock ren faire with his shirt cut more simply and his hair, though it appeared to be fighting the effort, pulled back at his neck. She was surprised to feel a moment's embarrassment at standing before him in old leggings, a stretched-out tanktop, and an old baggy sweater. He scowled and flexed his gloved hands at his side.

"Now, Sarah, whatever could I have done to deserve that?"

The laugh that came out of her mouth surprised her, "Oh I don't know, your majesty, maybe stalking, kidnapping, emotional and physical trauma, thirteen more years of stalking and having to be on guard for everything thing I think, say or dream so I don't get pulled into your insane depravity again."

"Well, when you put it like that… it just sounds like fun," he said with a smirk.

"Bastard."

He shrugged, tugging on a gloved hand.

"That maybe, but I hardly think that you called me here tonight to discuss my many, many charms. Dare I ask what demands will you make of me this time? Are you feeling the need to destroy more cities? Beguile some more of my gormless citizens? Wreak havoc and destruction on everything I do for you?"

"Everything you do for me? How dare you! You tried that line on me once before Goblin King, it didn't work when I was a teenager and it won't work now," Sarah spat at him as she stalked toward him.

He moved quickly and began to circle her and quickly he was too close. 

"Sarah, Sarah," he crooned, leaning close to her ear, "Still trying to cast me as the villain in your little play are you?" Sarah froze; acutely aware of just how close he was to her. "Did my Labyrinth not teach you that things are not always what they seem?"

He broke away quickly and she had to stop herself from stumbling from the release of tension in her entire body.

"You, for instance, appear to be a normal, mild-mannered," he scoffed a bit at his own words as he rubbed his cheek, "young woman." He reached up and tucked a gloved finger gently under her jaw. Instead of taking a step back as she knew she should have Sarah

locked eyes firmly with him as he continued; his voice smooth and soft once again. "But if I look this way," he turned her head ever so slightly to one side, "I see a brave heroine, beloved by all, the savior of wished away babies in the clutches of evil kings. A young woman worthy of the awe and reverence of all that gaze upon her. And if I look that way," he turned her face to the other side, a sneer sliding into his tone, "I see a brazen little force of chaos and destruction and an obnoxious thorn in my side."

He dropped her chin and turned away from her.

"Thorn in your side?" she hissed. "That's rich coming from someone who stalked me in both my dreams and reality for years."

She could see the muscles across his back tightened with that and he let out a little, sardonic laugh, "Oh little Sarah, you still have the audacity to believe that you could tear my world apart and it would still revolve around you? You made it quite clear in our last meeting don't you remember?" He glanced over his shoulder. "I have no power over you."

The words shook her. She had forgotten just how much power "right words" had around him.

"But you've been here," she reached out and took his arm, forcing him to face her. "You show up all the time. You show up as that damned bird and you follow me just out of the corner of my eye and try to force your way into my head while I sleep. You're constantly around and you're saying you had no control over that at all?"

"Sarah, you understand so little of the world that I come from. You laid the terms of your victory, you made it clear to the fates and all magic that I could not reach out or approach you. No actions of mine could pull, guide or sway you from then on. But I am still who I am, I am at the beck and call of all who know of me. Most of my kind can only appear in this world if someone calls for us and you, my lovely little force of destruction," he leaned toward her, a mischievous glint in his eye as he brushed a dark lock of hair behind her ear, "have a bad habit of calling for me, personally."

Sarah could feel the heat rise up her neck and spread across her face.

"However," he continued, "you are still exceptionally good at being vague and inviting my presence only to a point. I can not tell you the number of headaches you have caused as you push and pull for me in your dreams alone. Really my dear, just make up your mind."

"So that's it then?" Sarah spat. "This is all my doing and since I won't let you close enough to fully invade my life or my dreams you've started sending your lackeys to do your dirty work for you? Honestly, your Majesty, I would have preferred a closet full of goblins to your latest detachment."

His eyes narrowed, "What do you mean?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean. The dream you sent me last night with the crows and then the people that showed up today at my job. Is this all because you can't get to me in the normal routes? Because that is a sick and twisted head game even for you. I don't care if we have to battle this out until doomsday, you can leave my kids out of this."

"Sarah," he said, reaching out for her hand. She tried to pull away, but he held tight and met her gaze with those mismatched eyes. "Sarah, I promise you I have no idea what you are talking about. While you may call me in your sleep and pull me into your dreams, I have no power there."

Sarah watched him closely, her green eyes tracing over his face watching for the slightest tell of deception. Her brows furrowed as the realization struck her, the dreams where hers. How many nights had she woken from dreams of green hedges and stone pathways, of swirling dresses, of searching and finding. 

“What did you dream of, Sarah?

"I dreamed of birds, crows actually, but they weren’t right. There was a big one that talked, had these teeth. And there was a line of my kids, the kids I’ve worked with over the years and I tried to them, but I couldn't. And then this creepy group showed up yesterday at work, they were wrong, off somehow. Even Hector felt it. I don’t think they were human. So if you didn't send this "committee" then who did?"

He suddenly gripped her hand tighter, pulling her closer to him, "What did you say? What did they call themselves?"

"They kept saying they were a committee," she said cautiously. "Why? What does that mean? What's going on?"

His grip loosened and he stumbled backward a step, "Damn it."

Sarah froze as his hand fell away from her arm; the air in the room went still and heavy and something pricked in the back of her mind. A warning, a siren; fear. She had felt like this only once before, after biting into a peach that wasn't what it seemed.

"What did you do?" She whispered, swearing to herself she would not cry; that he would not see her break. 

He didn't respond. 

His mismatched eyes seemed dazed and out of focus. She stopped her foot on the ground as hard as she could and shouted, "What. Did. You. Do!"

This shook him out of his melancholy trance, he snarled, "What did I do? What did I do? Oh yes, we're back to this song and dance again aren't we? I do everything you ask. I stay at your beck and call. I let you pull my very world down around me and when it all goes to hell, you have the nerve to ask me, what did I do?” He stalked past her, "To use that lovely expression you are ever so fond of, precious, it is not fair."

"Damn it, stop talking in riddles tell me what you mean. I have done nothing but try and live my life since I ran the Labyrinth. I've tried to leave it all behind me and move on and do something good with my life, which is more than I can say for some."

He let out a truly callous laugh this time, "You foolish, impudent little thing. Do you still believe after all these years that you could just close the door on the Underground and set it

aside like that little book and your childhood toys, tucked away and forgotten? You spent time in the Underground, you went up against magic and won; that is not something you can just put inside your toy chest with the rest of your childhood. It changed you in ways you do not understand, and now it's finally caught up with you. You never did learn to ask the right questions and you still refuse to think about the consequences. You've been out here in the world using the little magic in you to continue to play the hero, but you forget that for every plucky heroine there is a villain waiting just around the corner."

Sarah rolled her eyes at this as she broke off his monologue, "Yes, and mine is a one-man, glitter-covered variety show with a knack for dramatic lighting."

"Oh Sarah," he sighed with a wry grin, "I don't deny that I can be quite villainous when needs be, but I am most certainly not your villain."

She was about to retort again when, mercurial as ever, his mood changed and he reached out for her hand. This time it was not a show of agitation or a tease, but a gesture that, in a human, she would have considered sincere. She placed her hand in his tentatively, as if offering a truce.

"What is after you now is worse than anything you could ever find in my maze and though I can see in your face that you are not afraid," he pulled her closer and met her gaze, "I am."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned I'm a fan of the slow burn and these two have a few things to work out on the way. 
> 
> And poor Sarah, I feel like there was a post-Underground follow-up packet and survey (please rank your experience) that she missed all those years ago, they would have had pamphlets titled like "Good Magic, Bad Magic: Coping Skills for the Newly Fae Touched Human", "Does This Look Weird? A Guide to Infected Fairy Bites.", "So You Had Fun Storming the Castle...: and inserted would be a handwritten missive from Jareth titled "Now That I've Ruined You For Other Men..."


	8. Too Much Exposition

The room stood still. Standing before her was the cruel, cold-hearted being who stole her brother and terrorized her journey through the Labyrinth. It was the same person who taunted and teased and tricked her over and over again on that journey until she could no longer tell up from down. Yet, for a moment, his eyes almost seemed caring and his voice had she not known any better, sounded truly concerned. She hadn't even noticed that she had instinctively gripped his hand too and for a moment it felt solid, warm, and comforting. She released the gloved hand though he kept a hold around her palm.

"Enough with the cryptic hints," Sarah said, trying to steady her voice, as she slid her hand out of his grasp. "What is going on? You need to tell me clearly. No riddles. No games. No half-truths. Now."

The authority in her voice seemed to shake him out of his thoughts and the brief look of concern clouded over with consternation again. He pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand and drummed his fingers along his hips as he thought. 

Sarah couldn't help stifle a little laugh, "Is it really so much work, to tell the truth, Goblin King?"

His fingers stopped drumming, but he gave no other response and Sarah sat down on her lumpy, second-hand futon taking satisfaction in a direct hit.

He stood there thinking for some time and just as her mind was about to wander he clapped his hands together, ran his gloved fingers through his hair as he leaned against the windowsill.

“I assume you now know that the Underground is more than just my Labyrinth and my Kingdom of indestructible imbeciles?” Sarah nodded and he continued. “There are other lands, other kingdoms, other creatures. It is a world filled with magic and magical creatures; some interact with your world and some do not. Some see your world and humans as friends, some as toys, and some as something much worse.”

“And let me guess, I’ve gotten the attention of the something much worse?”

“To put it lightly, yes. They are thieves and tricksters, liars and tyrants. They see the mortal world only as a source of power to slake their own thirst for domination and magic. But they are parasites, bottom dwellers that no kingdom will keep and no Magic will… will,” his eyes glazed over for a moment and he stumbled over his words, “and no Magic will claim. They are a blight on my world and a threat to yours… I thought they were gone and I was wrong.”

Sarah pulled her knees to her chest, trying to comfort herself with the little warmth she felt in her body as she lost herself trying to sort through what he had just said.

“Wait,” Sara spoke, her voice not more than a whisper. “Wait, you thought they were gone? How did you know of them?”

He drew a gloved across his face, “They were well known for a while in my youth and not for the right reasons. They were a menace intent on gathering more magic for themselves through any means necessary. They were destructive and blood thirsting and dangerous. I

had reason to believe they had been dealt with and dispersed. It was at the beginning of my reign as Goblin King so I suppose I had more on my mind for I have not given them a second thought for more than two hundred years.”

“Okay,” Sarah replied, “But then why are they here?”

“Honestly my dear, I have no idea,” he replied as he flopped on to the futon next to her, draping his arms out dramatically. Instinctually Sarah scooted away, clinging to the far arm of the seat. He let out a languid sigh. “I am no hedgerow pixie, Sarah, I will not bite,” he taunted with a small, sardonic laugh.

"You must be enjoying this," she muttered as she began to peak her eyes out to see him, but thought better of it and buried her face into her knees again. She didn't need to see him gloating at a time like this. "Isn't it what you've wanted since I defeated you as the world fell down? Foolish little Sarah, making a mess of things again. Getting what she deserves."

"Sarah, I - " he began only to be cut off by her telephone's shrill ring.

Sarah gave a small yelp as the ring broke the silence. In a split second, she was on her feet, her fear and frustration pushed down to the back of her mind, and in her haste, she nearly ran right into the back of the Goblin King who had also jumped to his feet, magic swirling at his feet. In the chaos of the moment, she couldn't help but grip the fabric of his shirt sleeves as she moved past him, fumbling with the receiver as she brought the phone to her ear. She pushed from her mind the realization that the tips of her fingers danced with little pricks of energy.

"Sarah," came a familiar voice on the line. Hector. "Are you awake?"

Sarah cleared her throat trying to affect her best nonchalant tone., "Yeah, I'm here. What's the news, Hector?"

"Not much, which is probably a good thing. Clyde called, said his buddies found that car about twenty miles away filled with some college kids who fit the profile you gave them. Apparently they were coming down off a good trip, but he said he'll send a car or two to patrol the area tonight just to be sure."

Sarah let out a sigh of relief, "Thanks man, that's good to hear. Not gonna lie, but I’ll sleep a little easier tonight. Tell Clyde thanks, I’ll have to let him tell me the long version of his championship disqualification story next time. You get some sleep okay?"

“Yeah me too, I swear it gets longer every time. And you do the same Sarah, you look like hell."

“Hector, we’re on the phone.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t say I was wrong,” Hector gave a little laugh. “Well, at least now you really don’t have to talk to birdbrain, right?”

Sarah paused, trying not to look at the magic creature standing in her living room sending off waves of annoyance and magical glitter - that was going to take serious effort to get out  of the floorboards. 

“Ha! Yeah! Yep, you can say that again! Okay, I should go. Night. Bye. ” Sarah let the receiver drop back into the cradle knowing that agitated nonchalance was not one her strong suits as she turned back to her uncanny houseguest who stood at the ready, long fingers flexing as the air around him shimmered and spun. He looked right at her, but for once she did not feel like she was being hunted.

"Stand down, Sparkles," she said with a half-hearted smile, while a part of her noted that there was something almost endearing about the sight while the more rational part of her actively tried to push that notion out of a window. "Maybe this was all a false alarm after all."

"No, I don't think so. Sarah, I need you to promise me that you will be careful, both you and these children you guide. I don’t know why, but this feels bigger than we know. I will come back with what news I can gather. It may take a little bit of time; my subjects, being mainly imbecilic ingrates with a disturbing fondness for poultry, make terrible spies."

Sarah, despite the knots in her stomach, couldn't help but laugh, "Yes, I do remember that." The smile left her lips quickly and she mustered up her courage to stalk closer to him, "Why are you doing this? What's in it for you?"

It was his turn to give a little laugh as he leaned close to her again, a little too close. "You and I have more in common than you realize and while I agree that I can be most villainous in many regards," Sarah involuntarily felt her breath catch he leaned closer, his breath skimming over the skin of her neck, "your insistence in believing that I am your villain, well, it's just not fair."

And in a flash, he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "And I say 'Zangief you are "bad guy"... but this does not mean you are bad guy.'" - Zangief, Wreck It Ralph
> 
> I bet Jareth has lots of these talks at is weekly Villians Anonymous meetings, which he only attends begrudgingly because it's either that or therapy sessions with the Wise Man and his Hat.
> 
> Thanks for all the comments and subscriptions and kudos, I'm glad you're enjoying this little story!


	9. Put on Your Red Shoes and Dance the Blues

It was a ballroom. Of course, it was. 

After hours of pacing and tossing and turning she had drifted off hearing a faint melody in her head thinking it was from the composer upstairs, but as her eyelids grew heavy and her body grew light the music stayed. It swelled, rising and falling in rhythm and complexity, breathy woodwinds joined strings plucked by deft fingers, here a bass line entered with a gentle moan and there, hands flew over keys and over the notes came voices. The voices rose, no gentle chorus, but whispers, laughter, chortles, and sneers filled her ears, surrounding her. Now she could feel the heat from nearby bodies and hear the rustle skirts and clink of shoes. A light caress met her hand and her eyes opened.

She was surrounded by a rolling sea of bodies. No masks lined their faces this time, but the faces which surrounded her seemed too fantastical, too wildly beautiful to be true. Sarah glanced down at her arms and legs, half expecting to see the sweatpants and t-shirt she slept in. Instead, her legs and body were draped in layers of iridescent gauze, not silvery pink of girlish fantasies this time, but the deep blue of the sky just before sunset. One her arms climbed delicate spider web lace shimmering with the faintest hints light as if she had dipped her arms into the night sky itself.

She moved forward, skirts billowing around her feet and the crowd, already dizzy from the siren call of the music, parted for her with eerie grace. She moved about the room, for in her dreams ballrooms were rarely for dancing, instead, they were for hiding and searching, tracking, and tracing. She was used to this cat and mouse game, they had been playing it for years. It had quickly lost its childish charm, instead, it left her restless and on edge.

Sarah skirted the edges of the ballroom and circled it’s marble columns, gusted with gold always watching and waiting for that flash from across the room, a hand on her arm, but none came. She walked in and out of rooms, all thrumming with life; the noise and music gathering around her as she walked from room to room, every door open to her. Still the feeling of cat and mouse persisted, the feeling like something was watching her always out of her line of sight. She thought if it were quiet there would be footsteps behind her as the weight of the air pressed ever so slightly against the skin of her back. She was searching, she was pursuing, or was she being pursued? The more she walked, pushing through the crowd the more she wondered if she were the cat or the mouse.

Then she reached the end of the corridor. Sconces flickered on the wall and suddenly the sound of the part was far away, too far away, and in front of her stood heavy double doors covered in knotwork. The light of the torches behind her made her shadow dance along the wall and she watched, mesmerized as she stood still yet her shadow seemed to keep dancing with the other shapes on the wall. Something about the shadowy dance in front of her both rooted her to the ground while a small voice in her head began yelling for her to run. Yet still, she stood and watched the shadows, tall and lithe, yet predatory, move closer and closer to her own. Sarah could feel a bead of sweat trace down the edge of her jaw as she fought the urge to scream that was crawling up the back of her throat. The shadow forms became arms reaching out fingers, long and sinewy with too many joints and points, towards her. Reaching and stretching as fingers wrapped around her hand and pulled her away.

The magic was broken. The sconces flared to life on the walls, chasing the shadows away. Sarah, heart racing and able to move again looked toward her savior, hoping to see mismatched eyes and a cheshire grin smiling back at her.

The air next to her was empty, and Sarah glanced down to where large eyes in a wrinkled face beamed up at her. The oldest woman Sarah had ever seen stared up at her through wild hair and a broad smile. Sarah gaped at the sight in front of her, so out of place in the glittering palace around her, as the little old woman circled Sarah’s hand in worn, callused, but warm hands, patting them gently as Sarah realized her breathing deepened and her shoulders relaxed.

“Do not worry, Vnuchka,” the old woman said, her voice not craggy and worn, but gentle and ancient like the bending of trees in the wind. She waggled a knobbly finger in front of Sarah’s face, “No one is so lost that they can’t be found.”

Before she could manage a word and with a smile that warmed Sarah from the inside, the little gnarled figure in front of her reached out and tapped Sarah ever so playfully on the nose as the sun broke through her bedroom window and drove the night and all its revels away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sarah was offered a ballroom dance elective in college, and as an act of impudent rebellion, she turned around and promptly enrolled in Clogging 101. 
> 
> She passed just barely with a C-, not because she was bad at it, but because the night before the final she threw one of her clogs at an annoyed-looking owl outside her window and was never able to find it again. 
> 
> This may or may not have something to do with a short-lived fad among goblins for seeing how far one could skip wooden footwear across the Bog of Eternal Stench.
> 
> ***************************
> 
> Short chapter tonight, we're leading up to a big chapter and I need to get this one just right to move the whole story forward.
> 
> Thank you for all the enthusiastic comments, kudos, and subscriptions. I really can't believe this little story has picked up so much steam.


	10. Thunder Bolts and Lightening

"If you tell me I look like hell, Hector, I swear to God I'll bog you right here and now," Sarah said, eyes closed working her way through her fourth cup of coffee of the day. She had her feet propped up on her desk and an entire three-ring binder over her eyes when Hector walked through the door.

Hector stood in the doorway appraising, “Rough night?”

Sarah gave an uncouth grunt from under the green plastic as she placed the phone in her hand back on the receiver.

It had been a strange and off-putting day since the moment she woke up. Ballroom dreams had a tendency to do and she was in a foul mood the moment she woke up, exhausted, and with aching feet. The air seemed to hum with the spiky electricity that arrives before a summer storm, but instead of coming to a head in a calamitous display of thunder and lightning, the day had just gotten hotter and more humid to the point that her patients became more wilted and short-tempered as the day drug on. Answers became shorter, doors were slammed with petulant huffs and sighs.

“Rough everything.” Sarah slid the binder back and looked out from her protective plastic fortress. “I had to physically separate the Campbell twins. Tasia had some PTSD trigger at school and won’t stay in a room with anyone male and we couldn’t figure out what it was. My agoraphobic relapsed, and then Jeremiah decided he would make up for selective mutism with selective colorful swear words.” 

After closing the door on that one, reassuring Jeremiah’s father she had heard much worse and they’d just try again next week Sarah had gone straight to her office and right to her the drawer where she kept the extra strength Ibuprofen and resolved not to think for the next thirty minutes, at least.

Sarah put her feet up with a thud and replaced her papers on her face. In the distance the sky lit up with heat lightning, distant clouds rumbled as the storm moved in darkening her office, yet refusing to rain.

"Ugh, that is rough, well just wanted to check on you before I headed out. Go home and get some rest okay?" Hector said as he started to close the door.

Sarah stuck out a hand with a shaky thumbs down, “Can’t still have my last case. I told Vee’s Aunt we could do some extended hour sessions so Vee could be in swimming this semester. You know get the socialization and exercise done all at once.”

“Oh, you might be in luck then. I just came from the front desk and the waiting room was empty. Maybe they are no-shows and you can book it home.”

“No,” Sarah said slowly sitting up and uncovering her face, “I was just on the phone with Michelle at the front desk and she said Vee was on her way up.”

Time stood still for a moment

“Fuck!” Sarah swore, loudly, and slammed her fist on the desk. "Okay, okay. We know what to do. She's probably just hiding out somewhere. Can you look in the staff lounge and I’ll check the bathrooms?" Hector, ever vigilant just nodded and took off in his best emergency speed walk,

Sarah sped towards the bathrooms, ducking under stalls and checking broom closets. Hector reappeared from the staff lounge, palms up, and shaking his head as he moved past her. 

“Damn it, I’m going up front.”

Sarah turned and backtracked into the front office as Hector kept pace behind her as they burst through the staff door. Nothing seemed out of place at first glance. Brown and orange plastic chairs lined the walls and the same bad nature photography lined the walls. Michelle, the receptionist, was busy tidying magazines and watering the hardy office plants. 

“Michelle, where did Vee go?” 

Michelle was a quintessential receptionist, she knew everyone by sight, and her years raising her six boys meant she was always paying attention. Nothing got past her. The woman turned, flicking her permed coif of hair from her face, “Who dear? Are you expecting a new client?”

Sarah glanced back at Hector, silencing him as he began to speak. She had a feeling of needles in the back of her neck that made her circle back. It was a feeling she'd had once before when a room had suddenly turned very, very wrong. She stood there for what seemed like too long trying to figure out what was out of place. A crack of lightning lit up the room and she saw it, the payphone by the front door was dangling from its receiver; swaying ever so slightly just above the ground. Michelle went back to humming to herself as she dusted an ancient yellowing water cooler. 

The air in the room suddenly felt heavy as she crossed the room and, not knowing what compelled her, placed the cold plastic phone to her ear.

For a moment all she could hear was her own heartbeat drumming in her ear before she heard it, ever so faintly - the cawing of crows.

The words were out of her mouth before she realized what she was saying as hissed into the phone, "You have no power over me!"

The cawing became louder until it morphed into a laugh, then to a cackle and then a croaking, harsh voice twisted out from the noise. "Oh your kingdom may be great," it sneered, "but what happens when they leave the castle?"

She dropped the receiver and flew down the hallway and out the door. Hector followed close behind as she yelled, "The front gate. Now!"

Sarah barreled through the front door and jumped down the front stairs, landing with a thud and a crunch that her brain assured her they’d deal with later.

"Vee!" she cried to the dark, head whipping around, scanning the road in front of her.

Behind her, Hector's voice boomed beside her, "Yvonne!"

A flash of lightning lit up the road in front of them and there they could just make out a figure in the dark on the other side of the old low front gate.

"Yvonne,” Sarah yelled over the rumbling of thunder. “You need to come back inside the gate now! Yvonne!"

The girl did not move and between the rolls of thunder, Sarah could hear crows again.

Part of Sarah's mind was still thinking through the rational choices when the rest of her jumped over the gate and ran towards the girl, grabbing at her arm.

Yvonne gave no resistance to her, nor did she move.

"Vee, come on. We need to get back. What is the matter with you?"

Sarah was close enough now to see that the girl's face was covered in wet streaks of tears, "You don't want me," she could hear her say.

"Don't be silly Vee, come back, we'll talk this through."

"Nobody wants me. Nobody cares. Nobody will even know I’m gone." Yvonne's voice was strangely monotone, her eyes unfocused. “I wish…”

"Don't you dare -" The cawing was growing louder now, filling Sarah's ears as she pulled at the girl who stayed rooted to the ground.

Almost lost in the growing howling wind Sarah could just make out Yvonne's voice, "I wish I wasn’t here.”

A crash of lightning blinded Sarah for a moment and her senses struggled to make sense of what was around her. Slowly the spots faded from her eyes and the ringing faded from her ears and when she looked again her hands were empty.

The screech of the birds filled her head now, the shrill caws picking and scratching at her mind. She felt petrified as feelings of hopelessness and desperation washed over her like a wave. The weight of it brought her to her knees as she felt the tears begin to fall. It was hopeless, it was all so hopeless. No one would notice. No one would care.

The caws of the crows became the words from her dream once again, much too familiar.

_ Say Your Right Words. _

"I wish…"  _ She knew these words. _

Somewhere in the screaming cacophony in her head, she could hear someone yelling her name.

"I wish…"  _ The right words would make everything better. She had failed, she was a failure and it was all so hopeless. All she ever did was put people in danger, they would be better off, safer, without her. If she could just leave it would be better, no one would notice, no one would care. _

She felt arms around her, dragging her backward and a voice yelling in her ear though it felt like it was coming from miles away, "Sarah, what’s the matter? Sarah!”

Sarah could barely hear his voice through the raging sound of her own thoughts. She fought free of his hands, she could feel something pulling at her now, and could feel words forming on her mouth that were not her own.

“I wish…” the words were coming out of her mouth and she could not stop them. She looked for Hector and saw his arm reach out for her once more, grabbing tightly around her wrist as she struggled to stop her own tongue. She could see his mouth moving, but could not make sense of the words. He pulled her close and clamped a hand over her mouth, as words began to bubble from her chest.

“I wish,” Hector yelled, his voice cutting through the chaos in her mind, as he looked her straight in the eye,” the Goblin King would take us away. Right. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And.... scene.
> 
> Thanks again for all the lovely comments! They've really been making my day!


	11. How Heroic

It was a bad dream; a very bad dream. Maybe it was a hangover, it kind of felt like a hangover; her head was pounding and her stomach churned. Sarah put her hands to her face, her skin felt clammy and there was a sharp pain building behind her eyes. She could feel a cold stone on her cheek, but when she put her hands to the floor to push herself up, her arms shook and she hit the floor again, rolling to her back.

She tried to open her eyes, but the room swam; shadows and faces coming in and out of focus. Hector. Hector was in front of her and she could hear his voice, but could not make sense of the sounds that drifted in and out of her thrumming ears. The pain was back behind her eyes, sharp and stabbing. She let out a moan that grew and built with the pressure in her head to a guttural howl of pain. As she dug her heels into the floor she could hear the voice, Hector’s voice, yelling louder and faster.

_What is going on? Why is there so much pain? Please, someone… help._

The agony was a rising wave pushing against her head and then, in an instant, it was gone. The sensation of needles pushing out from her brain was replaced by the feeling of cool fingers on her forehead and then of hands gently cupping her face as her skin tingled with little jolts of static energy. Her eyes focused on the person before her and two mismatched and panicked eyes stared back at her. The crashing hum in her ears began to fade away and she could hear his familiar voice repeating her name over and over.

She could hear Hector now too, "Sarah, come on, say you're okay. Just say something."

Sarah turned her head towards his voice, forcing words up out of burning lungs still struggling for breath, "Hector… you are so fired."

She could hear his relieved, nervous laugh as a wave of exhaustion washed over her and she struggled to keep her eyes open as she turned back to the mismatched eyes staring at her through a shock of wild hair. A warm hand wrapped around her hands and they gripped slightly tighter as she flexed her fingers and she smiled ever so slightly as she closed her eyes. 

"What just happened?" Sarah managed in a whisper as she felt herself being lifted off the cold stone floor. Her head began to swim again and she leaned into a soft shoulder and wrapped her hand around the fabric of a soft shirt as she felt them begin to move across the room.

"Well, it appears I just did something incredibly foolish and saved your life," he said with a chuckle, just barely a rumble in his chest. "Most likely a terrible decision on my part and one I'll probably regret in the morning."

"Why, Jareth," Sarah said as darkness fell over her once again, "how heroic."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One quick little chapter, because I love this stupid little chapter and I love when J. does incredibly foolish things... I think I'll write more incredibly foolish things for him to do. =)
> 
> Next chapter needs a bit of work, will be back as soon as I can with more!


	12. Consequences

Sarah lay in the bed for a while after she woke up without opening her eyes. She could tell she was in a bed, could feel the sheets tucked in around her, and the soft pillow under her head and if she lay there and didn't open her eyes it wouldn’t be real.

_ I can just lay here and pretend that I'm on my own bed with the bad springs, that the sheets are softer than usual because I used too much fabric softener and that the breeze I feel is coming from the window I left open last night after the storm. If I can just keep my eyes closed… _

"Goodness Sarah," a voice cut through her mental affirmations, "does waking up always require such a feat of concentration?"

_ Damn it. _

She reluctantly opened her eyes with an unwilling sigh and looked around the room. For a moment she struggled to make sense of what her eyes were seeing, the colors and shapes swam in and out of her vision until they rested at the foot of the bed. There, leaning against the canopied bed was the Goblin King, clothed in black, with a disparaging look draped across his face. His mouth was a thin line and knit brows framed dark circles around the incongruous eyes.

"You're looking quite villainous this morning," she said as she pushed herself up in the bed, head still swimming.

"I'm feeling quite villainous this morning," he replied as Sarah rolled her eyes. "Imagine how you would feel if your evening was interrupted by an imbecilic, heroic ne'er-do-well wishing himself and a magically whiplashed, half-dead spirited heroine into the middle of my study and ruining any chance I had at a relaxing, quiet night at home."

"Liar," Sarah said in a beat.

"I beg your pardon?" For a moment he almost looked genuinely shocked at the word.

Sarah began as she searched for a way to extract herself from the sheets of the bed. "You rule over a magical hedge maze and a kingdom full of ludicrous magical creatures, the vast majority of which are usually drunk and bizarrely attached to a cadre of rogue chickens. There is absolutely no way you were going to have a relaxing, quiet night at home."

The Goblin King shrugged off her rebuttal.

"Well," he continued looking apathetic. "You two did manage to track dirt everywhere."

Sarah glanced down at her hands as she balled up the sheet covering her, throwing it to the foot of the bed; there were still streaks of dried mud and scrapes from when she had vaulted over the stone fence and landed in the landscaping below.

"That I can believe. What happened? It felt like my skull was about to break in half."

"Your stalwart knave wished you away in one direction as you were being pulled in another. If I had not let the wish come through, it would have been like tearing a sheet of paper in half."

“Mentally?”

“Physically.”

“Oh,” Sarah shuddered as she fell back on the bed. “I suppose I should be grateful he thought to wish us away, I suppose.” 

“You suppose? Sarah, Magic is not something to be trifled with. After all this time you still haven’t learned-”

“Oh shut it, Goblin King,” Sarah interrupted, swinging her legs from the bed and planting her feet firmly on the ground. “I’m not in the mood for a lecture right now so you can just stop ruffling your feathers and stop trying to treat me like I’m a confused and stupid fifteen-year-old.”

“Then don’t act like a confused and stupid fifteen-year-old. Actions have consequences here and you’d do well to remember that for once,” he sneered.

“Remember that? How can I forget it? I’ve lived with the consequences of my actions for thirteen years. I tried to live with the consequence and look where it got me! Right back where I started! Don’t you dare lecture me about consequences Goblin King, you sit in your castle with your magic and fancy quick changes and stupid riddles and you dare to lecture me about consequences?”

They were toe to toe now; muddy hightops butting up against polished leather. At their hips both flexed their fingers, one ready to summon magic, the other ready to throw a mean uppercut. Deep green eyes shot daggers at mismatched pupils and the room shimmered with the possibility of magic and more.

“Why you insolent little sparrow, I should just send you back right now and be rid of you once and for all, consequences be damned.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“So would I.”

The magic dropped, the storm around their feet disappeared into the stone floor at the sound of Hector's voice from the doorway. 

“No, really, don’t let me stop you,” he said walking into the room and taking a seat in a carved wooden chair like he was walking into his favorite bar down the road and not a magical castle in another world. He held an apple in one hand and took a large, crunchy bite out of it before continuing, “I’ve never seen someone go head to head with Sarah and win. She’s a force, man.”

“Yes, I am aware of that little habit of hers,” the Goblin King sneered through clenched teeth.

"And don’t you dare forget it,” she declared, jabbing him in the shoulder with a finger. “I’m not a runner and I am not one of your subjects that you can push and pull at your every moody little whim! I have my own mind and my own autonomy and I do not let people, magic kings or no, push me around.”

“No of course you don’t, you just barrel on ahead wreaking havoc and destruction like a vexing typhoon of confounding optimism.”

From behind him, Sarah could hear a cough that was definitely covering a laugh coming from her friend, “I do not wreak havoc and destruction!” 

“Tell that to my bridge, or my guard or the majority of the western half of the Goblin City. You need to stop and think for a moment before you get yourself killed, or worse.” Jareth's hand shot out and grasped her around the arm and drew her closer to him, hands on her shoulders, his grip was hard but his words quickly lost their edge.

"I understand Sarah, I know you are strong and brave and infuriatingly stubborn. I will never forget that you won, but this is not your world. This is not a world that plays by rules and where the consequences always make sense. This is Magic and if you rush headfirst into everything it will kill you and despite what you may think I can't fix everything. I can't rearrange time and pull the world down every time you don't think something through!”

She shook his hands from her shoulders, “I am not asking you to fix me; hell, I’m not even asking you to help me.”

“I know that you damned foolish thing, yet here I am nonetheless!”

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to help you. Because I want to help you.”

“Well, I don’t want your help!” Sarah raged, her chest feeling tight as the words escaped her lips. She steeled herself, driving her heels into the ground ready for the next verbal assault, but it did not come. His shoulders sagged, defeated, as he leaned closer to her. 

“Yes, I can see that,” he reached out a gloved hand just above her hair, careful not to touch her. “However, should you need it…”

And in a wink, he was gone.

Sarah stood there, speechless until Hector cleared his throat and walked over to her, putting a hand to her arm. Sarah blinked, clearing the fuzziness from her mind, bring her friend's dark eyes into focus in front of her. She knew that look, it was one of straight-talking and hard truths.

“Sarah…”

“I don’t want to hear it, Hector,” she said dejectedly, “I don’t need to be analyzed or to examine my trust issues. I just need some time to think. I just need to think, okay.”

He faltered for a moment before leaning to wrap her in his arms, giving her a tight, but quick hug. He knew her, Sarah was not the type to breakdown easily, he could stand there for hours and she would stand tall no matter what.

“Yeah I know,” he said, putting an arm around her, letting her walk him to the chamber's heavy door. She leaned against the frame as he walked through, and turned, “but Sarah there’s one thing you should know, okay? It’s important”

She sighed, forehead resting against the carved wood, “Yeah?”

“You should know,” he said earnestly, “your hair is absolutely covered in glitter.”

The door slammed in his face and Hector smiled and took another bite from his apple. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so we had a land hurricane this week where I live... so I guess now I know what it's like to have one's castle torn down by a vexing typhoon of confounding optimism except replace "confounding optimism" with 100+mph straight-line winds. We're okay, just a few power outages and a big pile of tree limbs, the city to the north is not doing so well and it looks like a bomb went off all over town. =(
> 
> I wish I was making it up... land hurricane, it's a real freaking thing. I'm just going to go burn my 2020 bingo card now before we actually end up with a Sharknado.
> 
> Thank you for all the comments and subscriptions and kudos, they're lovely, you're lovely... let's just all keep being lovely people because this year is a bitch.
> 
> ********  
> Thanks to Har_Har_Harvey for the inspiration of how to end this chapter


	13. Intermission I

Light broke through the large double doors, washed across smooth stone floors, and climbed over carved wooden furniture. It slinked across the room, filling corners and crevices with a light with a rich, warm orange glow until it reached the farthest corner of the chamber where a young man sat in a high backed chair, stoic and unmoving, hiding from the light.

There he had sat all night as the cool air from a starless sky blew in and tried its best to lull him to sleep. They said he should sleep, that it would be helpful for the trials he was to face today, but sleep never came. His face was drawn and dark circles surrounded heavy lids. The eyes which starred out from beneath the long, unkempt hair which spilled over his shoulders were unfocused, long ago lost to heavy thoughts in the dark.

He was prepared. All his training over the years was meant to lead to this day; the day which he would be the perfect candidate for the Magic that waited for him out there and all those years how he dreaded this day. To take up the mantle of this godforsaken place, how long it had been an embarrassment and he had done much to ignore throwing himself at anything and anyone in his path to forget what lay in his future. But now that it was here, oh what a day it would be, as years of planning fell into place and this laughable little kingdom finally became the power it could be and power it did have and soon it would be his.

The man did not stir as a figure stepped out from the shadows next to him, “Speaker, you should not be here.”

“You have not rested,” said the person draped in black ignoring the terse words.

Dry eyes blinked as a dry throat spoke, “No, I have not.”

“You are concerned.”

“I am not.”

“Then you are afraid.”

“Hardly. This is all a formality. I will pass the test, I will claim my sigil and it will all go according to plan. You will see.”

The figure in black gave the man in the high back chair an appraising look from the corner of its eye as the man with creaking joints leaned forward to rest his head on long clasped fingers draped in black leather. A curved smile slowly spread across its pointed face as it stepped back into the shadows.

“Of course, your majesty.”

When he could be certain he was alone the man in the chair stretched his long legs and stood to step into the orange dawn, a sly smile drawing his lips into a tight line. He crossed the chamber, long fingers curling around the handles to the balcony doors. 

It was true what they said, Jareth thought as he opened the doors, in the Labyrinth nothing was as it seemed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, now what do you think of this little slice?  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> Hope your weekend is smashing and filled with an adequate amount of glitter. Bigger chapter to come soon!


	14. A Big Mess

Sarah's hands curled around the handles to the balcony doors, the cool metal a welcome sensation as she took a deep breath and pushed them open. The air hit her in a welcome wave as she walked out on a stone balcony, vines crawling over the ledge and little pools labyrinth glitter pooling in the corners. In one corner lichen crawled carefully up one side, blinking at her. She walked to the edge and released her breath. Out before her stretched the labyrinth in a chaotic patchwork landscape which stretched as far as she could see until it blended with the orange, sunless sky. She could see rings that prickled familiar memories, here stonework, there were hedges, but also parts she didn’t recognize. She could see woodwork and the shimmer of water, towering trees, and looming buildings. It was daunting, yet strangely calming. She hadn’t expected to feel so calm here again.

Apart from the visits with her friends she had tried so hard to distance herself from the Labyrinth, convinced it was a bad dream she had no desire to revisit. She had become careful with her actions and her words so that she would not find herself inadvertently tripping along its stone paths again. Her work with children like Trevor reminded her daily just how thin the worlds got in some places and she was always so careful. Yet, here she was, not of her own choice, but nevertheless she was here again and it felt peaceful. Her run had been anything but that, it had been chaotic and mindbending and in some place terrifying and in others just confusing. She had thought, in a true neverland fashion, that perhaps she could never come back, that it wouldn’t exist or would spit her out for being too old or too serious, yet here she was standing in the Castle beyond the Goblin City and smiling.

However, she was not smiling for long as the weight of why she was here, how she got here and who was here all came raining down on her like an avalanche. Something had tried to take her back Underground against her will, and that something had taken Yvonne. Instead of calling the police, Hector had wished them to the Underground and where she was now indebted to her childhood antagonist who was now sulking somewhere and she had that feeling like she was fifteen again, standing at great stone gates as an adventure was about to begin.

“Okay,” she finally spoke out loud, “you’re back and it’s not fair and nothing is as it seems and you’ve done this once and you can do it again.”

“Now that’s the spirit.”

Sarah spun on her heels, “Who’s there?”

“Just the Bwca, my Lady, never you mind the Bwca.” Still, Sarah saw nothing, but near her feet the dust kicked up a little bit in a pattern in front of her. She squinted and the air rippled, hinting at something scooting along the floor.

“What’s a bookah? Where are you?”

“Ah yes, the Bwca forgets,” and with a snap a little creature stood in front of her, a spindly reed and rush broom clutched in knobby fingers. It was a surprisingly clean and smartly dressed creature with its long nose and a green cap covering wiry, but neat hair.

“Oh,” Sarah exclaimed, “you’re a goblin! Nice to meet you Bookah.”

The creature shot her a thinly veiled look of contempt, “No, I isn’t,” they exclaimed, but quickly regained their composure. “I, my Lady, is the Bwca.”

A moment of silence lay suspended in the air.

“Oh, of course, you are,” Sarah covered. “How could I have made such a mistake, please forgive me.”

The little creature gave a little nod and resumed its sweeping, “My Lady is here for another adventure.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Oh yes. My lady won the game and messed up the castle. Took long time to clean up.”

Sarah felt her face flush, “Oh yes, about that, I am sorry…”

The Bwca stretched out a gnarled, but surprisingly clean hand as its eyes went wide. “Oh no, lady it was wonderful. The Bwca got to sweep up all the pieces and put them back together again. Big mess. Lovely mess. Maybe my Lady make another big mess again?”

“I don’t think the King would like that very much. I don’t think he’s very happy that I’m here at all” 

The little thing scratched under its green cap, “Yes, King would be grumpy if you left and made big mess again. Was very grumpy last time, but the Bwca would be very happy.”

Sarah tried to stifle a laugh, of course only a sprite that loved cleaning up messes would live in a goblin filled castle.

“I think I’m already making a big mess my little friend, and I don’t know which way is up let alone where I’m going. This place seems to have that effect on me. How am I supposed to start an adventure when I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do”

The Bwca rested its head on the reed handle of its broom, its brows knit together as it strode over to her, broom twitch in their hands, “Sometimes it enough just to know that the thing you don’t know how to do needs doin’.”

Sarah stood and mulled this over in her mind, “Is it enough? I mean to just know that something needs done?”

The Bwca paused again though Sarah could now see that it strained the little creature to be still too long, “and be willing to do the thing once you know how.”

The advice here never was very straightforward, Sarah reminded herself, but it was always quite good - once she worked it out. The Bwca was now standing in front of her, clean bare feet quietly twitching in front of her mud-stained pants and dirty shoes. 

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said, “but is there a name I can call you?”

“I’s the Bwca,” it sniffed, “I’s don’t need a name.”

“Okay, the Bwca, you seem to be quite excellent at tidying up,” the little creature puffed out its chest, “and I, well, as you can see I’m quite a mess.”

The Bwca looked her up and down, its small bare feet padding on the stone, and setting its rush and reed broomstick to the ground it took ahold of her pant leg, just between mud splatters and tugged as it made its way back inside.

“The Bwca knows how to do the thing that needs doing,” they paused and looked up at Sarah, a wild woman covered in mud and foreign clothes with magic shimmering in her hair, “and soon my Lady will too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the World Fell Down the first time, Jareth stayed in owl form for four months. 
> 
> Three of those months were pure petulant and incredibly dramatic sulking and though he had insisted he was "over it" he spent another month as an owl just to escape the happy working songs the Bwca sang as they rebuilt the castle. The Bwca are quite adept at things like stain removal and putting Escher rooms back together, they are not so skilled when it comes to harmonizing.  
> ..............................  
> Sorry, it's been so long without a new chapter. Our internet went down last Saturday and it took almost a week for an entire two-block stretch of midwesterners to call in a report the darn outage because, you know, we just had a land hurricane and "didn't want to be a bother". I kid you not.  
> ......................  
> The Bwca or Bwcabahod is a Welsh "brownie" known for assisting with the spinning, weaving, and washing up for a place that generally hates to be seen doing its work but of course, Sarah is quite good at making friends isn't she? Please insert 80's cleaning/makeover montage into your imagination before the next chapter.


	15. Chaotic, but Helpful

“And so Abuela says to me, Hijo, just try it. Nabo Sueco is delicioso, just like an apple!”

“And you did?”

“Of course I did, I took a big bite right out of it… and let me tell you a rutabaga tastes nothing like an apple and there’s Abuela Lupe just cackling in the middle of the kitchen as I’m spitting chunks of rutabaga all over the floor and that’s how I learned that you didn’t ask Abuela for a snack before dinner.” 

Sarah was wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, a good Abuela story always helped to put her in a good mood and Hector had plenty. That combined with a bath, clean clothes, and food meant she almost felt human again. Well, as human as one could feel trapped in a magical netherworld. The Bwca had been incredible, helping her locate an unsurprisingly lavish bathing room complete with a magically filling tub and the softest towels she’d ever felt. She had rinsed the iridescent magic from her hair and emerged a few hours later to find her own clothes laundered, food spread across a writing desk, and Hector perusing an extensive bookshelf.

“I must admit you’re handling this better than I expected,” Sarah said, propping her feet - canvas high tops and all - on the carved desk in front of her. “The Labyrinth is … well, it’s a lot.”

Hector shrugged, “Don’t forget you’re not the only one who’s crossed over the line. Though this is definitely nicer than the digs I’m used to. Cleaner definitely.”

“You haven’t seen the throne room or the city. Goblins are not known for being tidy creatures.”

“Well, this place is definitely goblin free.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that,” Sarah glanced around at the room filled with intact furniture, tapestries lining the wall, and definite lack of skittering goblin feet. “He probably magics the room to keep them out.”

Sarah bit into a piece of crusty bread slathered with butter as she tried very hard not to think of this space as His. 

“So,” Hector broke the silence, “what is the plan?”

Sarah tilted her head back and her long dark hair nearly reached the floor and sighed. “I have no idea. We need to get home, we need to get out of here and as much as I wanted to just wish us back I won’t go back without Yvonne. So I’ve just got to figure out what took her, where it took her, how to get there, how to get her back, and how to get home again.” She waved her hands above her. “Piece of cake, just go on the adventure, fight the bad guy, save the day -”

“-talk to the owl-”

“Exactly, talk to the, what?” Sarah snapped her head back up and stumbled over her words as her friend interrupted her.

Hector met her eye and motioned to the balcony doors with a smile where an owl glared from its perch on the railing.

Hector cocked his head slightly, “I didn’t know owls could look annoyed.”

“Ugh, you have no idea,” Sarah moaned, pushing herself away from the table. “Just stay here and try not to eavesdrop too obviously.”

“No promises.”

Sarah walked out on the balcony, closing the door behind herself. She crossed her arms and waited. She wondered for a moment how much of the last decade she had spent glaring at an owl, it was definitely more than was normally acceptable. She knew he was waiting for her to apologize, he didn’t need to be in physical form for her to know a battle of wills when she saw one - it was her specialty. She walked over to the railing and leaned down on it next to the white owl which hopped and shuffled to give her room.

“I appreciate the sanctuary you’ve given us,” she said, picking her words carefully. 

The air swirled and she knew that he was standing next to her. “You are welcome.”

“The Bwca was very helpful.”

“The Bwca? You saw one of The Bwca?” She nodded, sparing a small glance at him. A small smile pulled at his lips. “Well, aren’t you just full of surprises?”

“I’ve been told that once or twice before.”

“Do you know that I ruled here for years before The Bwca showed themselves to me? They’re very particular like that, but I suppose that manipulating my subjects was always one of your particular talents.”

“Careful there Goblin King, that almost sounded like a compliment. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you don’t kick them around one moment and threatening them with a bogging.”

He scoffed, “I’ll have you know they quite enjoy the kicking and are unnaturally fond of that damned Bog.”

“You know,” she said with a smile, “I almost believe you.”

“I also said that I would help you,” he leaned along the rail next to her, “if only you ask for it. Do you believe that too?”

She was quiet again and he stood frozen next to her.

“You're asking if I believe that the deranged, glittery, pied piper whole chased me through tunnels and gave me magical fruit and twisted time to suit his needs wants to help me?”

Jareth made no movement, but the air around him seemed to change. But instead of glitter and dark, swirling magic he just laughed, "Well I'll admit you do have a plethora of surprisingly creative ways for describing me. How I must run circles through that pretty little head of yours."

"I am trying to be serious you -"

“Don’t you remember the first rule of this tricky place, precious? Nothing is as it seems in the Labyrinth.”

"Okay," she began bracing her hands against the smooth stone railing. "So if nothing is as it seems here, and you aren't some evil, child thieving bastard then what are you?"

"I prefer chaotic but helpful," he said with a smirk.

She turned and examined him for a moment, “Why are you helping me? What’s in it for you?”

He stared out for a moment until he turned to meet her gaze. Back during her first run meeting his eyes were unnerving, something that would throw her off balance, now they were a challenge for her to meet.

“We are not that different, you and I. We both seek to protect the weak and the innocent.”

“Protect? You steal children!”

“No, Sarah, I steal nothing. I take what is offered to protect those who would be cast aside by a cruel, indifferent world. I protect them from the ills of their world and mine. I try to help those who can be helped.”

Sarah looked at him, dark eyebrows knitting together in thought as she tried to examine him, watching for those tells which would usually inform her of lies and secrets. She wasn’t entirely sure if she could use the same psychology on creatures in a magical world, but was worth a try. 

“You want me to believe you were trying to protect Toby? From what?”

He examined her for a moment, and for an instant, she felt like her fifteen-year-old self again.

“Well,” he said after some consideration, “from you, precious.”

“Me? Toby wasn’t in danger from me.”

“No? Perhaps not physically, I doubt even in your peevish rage you would have ever hurt the boy, but you and I know there are more than one way to hurt a child. I would have spared him that if I failed to help you.”

“Help me? How on earth did you help me? You got in my way and blocked my path and, I mean, the Cleaners Goblin King, you sent the Cleaners!” 

“Oh the Cleaners, will we never move past that?” He asked petulantly, waving a hand. “It was nothing.”

“Nothing? Nothing! You and your “nothing tra-la-fucking-la”, you put me in danger and call it help?”

“Oh, you were never in real danger. I wouldn’t have allowed it and yes, my dear, I helped you.” He leaned in closer to her and she dug her heels into the ground. “I challenged a spoiled, selfish child to become better than she was and look at what you became - the Champion of the Labyrinth, the Girl Who Ate the Peach and Remembered Everything, the Conqueror of the Goblin City, She Who Made the World Fall down. I was so…” He stopped, collecting himself from his fervent speech.

“Angry?”

“Proud,” he said reaching for her hand as a smile crossed his lips, “and maybe a little angry. It was a rather nice castle I will say and you did make a terrible mess of the city.”

Though her feet were still firmly on the ground Sarah felt off balance. “But you and I are…you’re my….”

“What? Rival? Antagonist?” he gripped her hand a little tighter, “Enemy? I keep telling you, precious, I am not your villain.” 

Again she searched that face, incongruous eyes peeking out beneath downy hair and a mouth always on the edge of a smirk. She was probably going to regret this. 

"You keep telling me that nothing is as it seems here and knowing that, I probably shouldn't trust you at all or believe a word you say," she stopped and he froze as she stepped closer to him, "but I’m going to. I’m probably a complete fool, but I really don’t think I have a choice."

“What a delightful vote of confidence my dear.”

"So if you aren’t a villain and really do want to help me I accept, but," she said sharply, jabbing a finger into his chest, "if this is another one of your plots and you betray me. If you end up being the villain I’m still not convinced you aren’t. Then I promise that a torn-down castle will be the least of your worries. I will tear down every stone of that maze, douse you in goblin ale and toss you headfirst into that god-awful bog of yours."

For a moment he looked truly alarmed and then a wide, Cheshire grin broke through and he wrapped his hand around hers, resting them against his chest. "Dearest," he said as she steeled herself against that familiar hypnotic lilt in his voice, "if I ever do anything to deserve your wrath again, if I ever betray you, lie to you, you can have the Labyrinth…. bog and all."

She studied his face a moment, unaware of the space between them growing smaller, "Deal."

And then he kissed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inside the Goblin Kings chambers Hector has taken out a square of paper from Jareth's desk and written:   
> "Sarah 0 GK 1"
> 
> The Rutabega Story is real, names and details have been changed to protect the innocent fool I married who was once convinced by a grandparent to bite into one.


	16. Foolish

_And then he kissed her and everything that happened after was entirely his fault._

They say you never forget your firsts. You never forget that exhilarating moment you first rode a bike without training wheels. You never forget the nervous excitement of your first awkward dance. You never forget the crushing sadness of your first broken heart. 

Sarah would never forget the first time she pushed a man off a balcony.

The kiss had frozen time, it had not been a quick meeting of the lips. It was soft, and firm and had started out as something simple, but then all the air seemed to disappear, and eyes closed and bodies drew closer, and a hand brushed across a cheek as Sarah pushed him away with all her might over the balcony railing. 

Of course, her victory was short-lived as he magically reappeared back on the balcony a moment later, though at a safe distance away.

“Now, precious, was that really necessary?” He asked as he dusted some nonexistent dust from his sleeve.

“Absolutely. Why did you do that?”

“Well, it seemed appropriate to seal our agreement, officially, as it were and a simple handshake seemed much too banal for such a momentous arrangement. After all precious, I just bartered my entire kingdom dependent on my own good,” he scoffed as he pulled nonchalantly on his gloves, “behavior. I might as well get something out of the bargain.”

“You… are…” Sarah sputtered.

“Irresistible,” the Goblin King interjected, his eyes alight with mischief.

“Insufferable!”

“Hm, we'll agree to disagree I suppose,” he said with a wink.

Sarah took a deep breath, about to launch into a lecture about proper human woman/magic king interactions when a crash sounded from the courtyard beneath them. They both peered over the balcony to see dense black smoke, goblins, and a number of small black chickens running from an open window. Jareth’s shoulders sagged and ran his hands over his face and through his hair in frustrated acceptance of the chaos down below him

“One hour,” he muttered, “ I just want one hour where they’re not destroying something or each other.”

Sarah couldn’t help but giggle as he turned to her, trying to put on the airs of someone not about to go put out a chicken induced grease fire. “I supposed I shall give you a moment to collect yourself, my dear, you seem a bit flustered. If you would be so kind as to stay here and not do anything foolish for a few minutes.”

Another crash erupted from down below, his shoulders sagged with a sigh and he was gone.

Sarah allowed herself a moment to be amused by the idea of the stern and self-righteous Goblin King in the role of an overworked and overwhelmed babysitter. If she squinted he almost had a chance at appearing a bit sympathetic, but then she recalled that she was quite put out about that kiss. And she definitely wasn’t blushing as she recalled the sensation of - no, that was definitely anger and nothing more and she definitely wasn’t smiling.

If Sarah had not been thinking so much about how she wasn’t blushing the feather might have seemed a little more suspicious. If Sarah had not been trying so hard not to smile she might have noticed that it was floating down to her on a nonexistent breeze. If Sarah hadn’t been quite so put out she might not have reached out and touched it.

The first thing Sarah noticed is that the colors were all wrong. Instead of the golden sky illuminating dusty stone around her the balcony was now tinge a dull, sickly grey, the sky was tinged with green; not a lush, verdant color rather the green of days old bruises and impending skies. She had not moved, but she had shifted and she felt a wave of nausea to match the sickly sky.

“Well now,” a voice spoke from behind, “we thought he’d never leave.”

Sarah froze, the voice rang in her ears, familiar yet foreign. Something about it chilled her to the core and her feet felt like lead weights as she slowly turned around.

Standing behind her was a person, a man perhaps, draped in black. There were no ruffles or frills here, no fanciful armor or dramatic flair, only a black cloak hiding all but the face of the person who stood before her. Lank, pale hair framed colorless skin and he stared at her with dark, burnished eyes. As the figure moved toward her the cloak glistened like oil - no that wasn’t quite right, it was like rain on feathers. There was nothing sudden in the movement, nothing intense or predatory yet every hair on her body stood on end in alert.

“So this,” the man-creature said, his gaze intent on her, “is the girl who tears down worlds? The little Queen without a kingdom. Interesting. It is not what we expected.”

  
“Well, nothing is as it seems in the Underground,” Sarah’s voice finally broke through. “I know you. You came to the gate yesterday, didn’t you? Who are you?”

The cloaked figure considered her for a moment, “We are the Speaker and yes, we have spoken before. You burned bright at our first meeting, but now we see you are just a little candle.”

“You’re trespassing in the Goblin Kingdom.” Sarah tried a bluff, she knew nothing about Underground politics. 

“We are neither here nor there. We belong to Nowhere. He saw to that with his tricks and his right words,” sneered the Speaker. 

“Nowhere? How can you belong to nowhere?”

“It’s easier than you think.”

The Speaker seemed to be content only to watch her and it was unnerving.

“I want her back.” Sarah followed it with her eyes as it started to slowly circle around her; she knew that it was not the type of thing you wanted to turn your back to.

“Want, want, want. Mortals can be very greedy can’t they?”

“I am not greedy!” Sarah cut it off.

“What are you then? Good? Helpful? Benevolent?” it sneered. The creature shrugged and the movement rippled the feather cloak from its shoulders down to the ground like a drop of water on a still pool, “Of course greed and benevolence are so easily confused, wouldn’t you say?”

“No,” Sarah scoffed. “I wouldn’t say that at all. I want what’s best for her, I doubt you can say the same. ” 

“We only want what they want. They want to be needed and we do need them, yes we do.”

Sarah clenched her fists at her side. The longer the creature stood there the heavier her shoulders felt as despair radiated from it like heat from fire.

“My will is as strong as yours and I demand you give her back.” Sarah spat through clenched teeth.

“Oh, little queen,” it sneered. “That might work on some, but not on Us. We don’t take orders like your tamed king and we like strong wills, little candle. They burn longer”

Sarah shuddered at this. The Speakers’ features remained passive, but its eyes glimmered at its last words.

“Then I wish for her back.”

“Tut, tut. You really don’t know the rules, do you? It doesn’t matter what you want; the child made the wish on her own.”

“Rules, hah! I know this is all some twisted game for you. It doesn’t matter what she wants either. There is no way that she actually wants to be kidnapped and disappear into the Underground. I know her and I don’t believe you. You made her believe that’s what she wanted, somehow you put those thoughts into her head. It’s not the same.”

“What mortals want or what they believe they want… it’s all the same in the end and we all know how stubborn mortals are. As soon as they get an idea in their heads it has an amazing ability to stick, and fester and grow. It’s quite delightful. All we have to do is plant the seed and your insecure, weak little minds just do the rest for us and once it’s deep enough, nothing can convince it otherwise.”

The Speaker turned from her, content in its victory.

“I could,” she whispered.

The Speaker stopped.

“I could change her mind,” Sarah said louder, willing her voice not to quiver. “If you just let me talk to her I could convince her otherwise.”

“Oh, you’re welcome to try,” its mouth twitched as if it was trying to smile. “What a delightful challenge that would be. The Aerie has not had visitors in such a long time.”

“And if I can convince her to leave, that is, you’ll let her go and you’ll leave her alone for good?”

“If you come to the Aerie and can convince the candle to leave you have our word that we will let her go and never bother her again.”

Sarah caught her words before they escaped her mouth. She knew what happened when you made deals and bargains down here. There was no turning back and no second place; it was always all or nothing.

“Deal,” she said, reflexively holding out her hand.

Now the Speaker smiled in earnest and it sent a shudder down to her bones. It was a smile that was too thin and too wide and as it’s beak-like lips parted she could see rows of pointed teeth.

“Deal,” it agreed and before she could withdraw her proffered palm a hand grasped around hers. Sarah could call it a hand because it seemed to have fingers, but the skin was black, haggard, and rough and the fingers ended in sharp points that dug into her skin.

She felt the magic building around her, but where goblin magic was the feeling of being surrounded by millions of glittering fireworks this magic felt empty and heavy as if it was pulling pieces of her away, bit by bit.

“Now take me to her.”

“Tut, tut, little queen. That wasn’t part of the agreement. You must get to her on your own.” 

“But where do I need to go? Where is your Aerie? How do I get there?”

“Oh, that’s the easy part. It’s in the middle of Nowhere.” 

The Speaker grinned once more as Sarah’s stomach sank to her feet as it’s oil slick cape flared with its hollow magic and it disappeared. The world shifted and the colors warmed again to the inviting orange glow of the Goblin Kingdom again.

Sarah stood on the balcony alone as the shock registered in her mind and through her body. She could feel her skin turn cold and clammy and her knees began to shake. She wrapped her arms around her body as she began to shake. She winced as her knees hit the floor. 

“Sarah!” She heard Hector slam open the balcony door and rush to her side. “What’s going on, take a deep breath, let it out. Damn it! Goblin King! Where the hell did he go!?”

Sarah could feel the change in the air, a warm electric thrum as Jareth repeated on the balcony, plucking a stray black chicken feather from his hair before noticing her current state.

“Sarah?” He exclaimed as he dropped to the ground in front of her, long fingers wrapping around her shoulders and lifting her up from her doubled over position. “Sarah, what is the matter?”

She felt his hands on her face, raising her head and searching her with those uncanny eyes.

“I did something,” her voice trembled as she searched for the words. In her hand, an oily black feather crumbled from her grip. “I think I did something very, very foolish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprisingly that was Jareth's first time being tossed over a balcony... but not his last.
> 
> Happy weekend lovely friends.


	17. Fools Rush In

They had been bellowing back and forth across the balcony for some time now. Any goblin that had not vacated the area after the fountain fire had been dealt with was now far away placing wagers of buttons and pocket lint on the favored victor of the balcony battle at a safe distance. All fairies had flown away from the tangled vines climbing the walls and any dawdling Bwca suddenly found themselves with a sudden urge to clean the far end of the castle.

**_“Of all the half-witted, obstinate, stubborn…”_ **

Hector knew there were times to get involved in other people’s fights; it was part of his training to know when to step in to deescalate a situation, how to diffuse tense situations, and help bring about a calm finale to even the most heated arguments. 

**_“Oh, that’s a bit of the pot calling the kettle black don’t you think?”_ **

Hector also knew there were times when doing just that was a damn foolish endeavor and that was why he was back in the Goblin King’s parlor sampling a rather fine bottle of wine. 

**_“Damn it all, stop talking over me when I’m…”_ **

He had wisely vacated the balcony when he saw that look in Sarah's eye, that look that said she would not be backing down any time soon. 

**_“Well, what the hell should I have done?”_ **

He had known her long enough to know that there was little you could do to persuade Sarah Williams when she was determined, though he had to give the Goblin King credit for trying.

**_“Did it never cross your mind to do something sensible?”_ **

Not because it was going to work of course, but because it was a hell of a show to watch.

**********************

Sarah scoffed, running a hand through her hair in aggravation. “Sensible? This coming from a man very obviously trying not to magic himself into his battle leather right now. Do you even know what that word means Goblin King?”

Sarah mentally gave herself a point as she saw that the swirling magic around his feet flared for a moment and then faded away. She wasn’t sure exactly how she expected the over-the-top overlord of the Goblin Kingdom was going to react when she told him of her strange, neither here nor there conversation with The Speaker, but she hadn’t expected this. He had gone from comforting concern to excessive outrage in a flash, quickly accusing her of no less than intentional, flagrant, and gross stupidity and her being in no mood was giving it right back.

“I know it means you don’t make deals with creatures that magic themselves in your mind!”

“Oh of course, what was I thinking? Clearly I should have waited for them to break into my bedroom!”

“We are not having that discussion right now! We are talking about you making deals with the Committee when you don’t even know what the stakes are!” 

“I know what the stakes are!” Sarah threw her hands up in exasperation and began stalking around the balcony. “The stakes are they have Vee and I’m going to get her back, that’s about as much as I knew when I went up against you and I did just fine and damn it, I’m going to do it again. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, your majesty, but I don’t care about being sensible. I don’t care about being safe. I care about doing the damned right thing. I care about helping those I love and if you’re not going to help me then get the fuck out of my way.”

“Of course I’m going to help you, you infuriating thing if you let me! I just think it’s an idiotic idea!”

“Of course I'm going to let you, you blustering jerk and I know it’s an idiotic idea!”

“Good!”

“Fine!”

“Wine?”

Both feuding factions stopped advancing on each other and turned at the word to see Hector standing in the doorway, a green glass bottle in one hand, and a set of delicate stemware in the other.

“Hector!”

“Sarah?” He gave her a knowing look, one dark eyebrow lifted, and his face stern. She stared daggers back.

Jareth interrupted their silent conversation, “Young man, we were in the middle of a delicate conversation.”

“You, your majesty, were about to get pushed off the balcony… again.” The Goblin King straightened his waistcoat in a vain attempt to avoid eye contact with the young man who had clearly made good on his promise to eavesdrop appropriately. “Now I think, if you both are done, we can have a conversation like rational, level headed adults who make good choices and aren’t about to go rushing to their certain death. So, después de usted, por favor.”

Hector gestured back into the parlor and waited as the two begrudgingly quieter people in front of him silently battled for the last inch of ground.

The Goblin King ran a gloved hand through his hair and bowed slightly to her, “After you, my dear.”

Sarah stomped past Hector, grabbing the bottle from his hand. The Goblin King strode past a moment later and Hector knew he was in for a long night. 

******************

Sarah propped her feet back on the desk and took a long swig from the wine bottle, proper aeration be damned, and smiled when she saw Jareth winced at her lack of decorum. Let him be uncomfortable, she hadn’t been comfortable since she landed here.

“Okay, both of you,” Hector motioned to the table. “I’m hoping you’ve gotten all of that out of your system.”

Sarah took another swig as Jareth swiped at an invisible bit of dust on the table.

“Okay, your majesty I understand that your upset that Sarah entered into an accord with the enemy while you’re away, and Sarah I understand that you’re upset… at everything probably, but listen, Sarah, you and I aren’t leaving until we figure out how to get Vee home and like it or not we’re going to need his help. So I need you to put aside your mutual pigheadedness and get over this. We have a job to do. Sarah, no more bargaining with the enemy, okay?”

She shot daggers, “Obviously.”

He turned toward the petulant king at the other end, but Jareth was quick to cut him off. “Do not think you can give me orders here, knave.”

Hector was unfazed by the posturing, magic or no magic, he’d been intimidated by scarier men in much more makeup before. “Oh, I have no intention of giving you orders here,” he leaned across the table, meeting those mismatched eyes. “But next time you piss her off, I’m not going to stop her.”

Jareth rolled his eyes but relented. “Understood.”

“Good, now Sarah, let’s go over the facts. I saw you two … talking on the balcony and when he disappeared I was walking out the door when you reached out for something and a split second later you were on your knees. But you said you had this entire conversation out there, I didn’t see anyone with you.”

“Yes, I did. I didn’t move. I stayed on the balcony, but I - I don’t know,” Sarah answered.

“You shifted,” Jareth cut in. “Certain things are not allowed here, I saw to that years ago. But, it seems they have found ways to slide into the bits in between. They shifted you just a little to the side, filling a pocket between here and wherever they might be.”

Sarah cradled her head in her hands, “Ugh, I forgot how weird this place is. I’ll try to make sense of that when I’ve had more to drink.”

“Okay, so you bent the laws of magical physics and had a conversation with this leader?”

Jareth interrupted this time, “It's not the leader, but it calls itself The Speaker and it’s not something to be trifled with.”

Sarah slammed the wine bottle on the table. “And you didn’t think to tell me this before?”

“Like I told you back in your apartment, I wasn’t sure what was going on and I was being honest.” Sarah huffed and Hector shot her a stern look. “Sarah, I told you the truth. I didn’t know what was going on. I had not seen or heard of anything like the Committee in generations, and couldn’t be certain of what was after you. Only now I’ve had my suspicions confirmed.” 

He sighed, finally seating himself and leaning his head on steepled hands.

“I thought this particular group was long since disbanded, they first came to power many years ago, before I became king here and their motives,” he paused, chewing the words over before he continued, “were atrocious. I’m sure you’ve read enough Aboveground fairy stories to know that it’s not all granting wishes and happy endings; the Underground, the faerie folk, do not always use their abilities or their interactions with your kind for good and this was a group of faerie who sought to lure humans to the Underground for the worst possible means; to fuel their own twisted magic and dark hearts.”

Sarah set down the bottle and stood, arms braced on the table. A million questions buzzing through her mind. “What do you mean, fuel?”

He met her eyes, “Not all magic here is innate. Some are born with abilities, some power is given. I was born with some natural ability, but the majority of my magic comes from the Labyrinth itself as right of being King. But magic can be addictive for some and they will seek out any means necessary to take what they don’t have. This group was filled with those who hungered, lusted after magic to the point that it twisted what little soul my people are given in their creation and drove them to darkness. They found a way to use mortals from Above to fuel this abominable compulsion, to lure them to the Underground and use them as fuel for this power, assigning them a fate worse than death.”

Sarah erupted, “How did you not think to tell me this beforehand!”

Jareth held up a weary hand, “Peace, my dear. I did not know. When they last roamed my world they had a different leader, went by a different name. Ages ago they called themselves the Parliament, and for awhile were nothing more than a lazy band of magic drunk, pompous fools of the nobility, but one of their number a devious, scheming cad named Sumaire found a way to twist their weak-willed, arrogant leader to darker means. Sumaire had only middling natural magic in him, and little chance to gain it in ascending to any seat of power so he played a long, corrupting game using the fool's own selfish, egotistical ignorance to his advantage.”

“How do you know all of this, Goblin King?” Sarah demanded, gripping the table, knowing what words would come next.

He sat still for a long time before those mismatched eyes surfaced from underneath the white-blond hair that had slipped in front of his face. His gaze was steady and hard, though not at her; unlike moments ago they threw no barbs in her direction. They looked defeated, resigned, and almost contrite.

“Because that fool was me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun Dun Dun!
> 
> Have a good weekend my lovelies!


	18. Stars

Sarah had had headaches before, this was nothing new. She had them from drinking too much wine and from drinking too little water. She had them butting heads with the stubborn undersides of tables (rude) and from butting heads with stubborn people (ruder). She’d even once gotten a headache from watching too many hours of a magical ambulatory purple biped when doing an extra babysitting gig with her brother. But this, this was the first time she’d ever had a headache from pure exasperation and she had a sinking feeling in her stomach that the longer she stayed Underground the more frequent this particular brand of headache would be.

She didn’t even care that she’d left Hector in the parlor with the Goblin King, walking back out to the balcony to get a bit of fresh air - he was tough, and she’d be surprised if he wasn’t already trying to psychoanalysis Jareth’s childhood or trying to one-up stories of Goblin antics with his Abuela tales. She needed a moment to breathe and that was why she was sprawled out on the flagstones of the balcony, arm over her face, and regretting a good portion of her life choices since the age of fifteen.

*************************

Hector stared down the Goblin King at the end of the table. They had been sitting in silence since Sarah had pushed herself away from the table and, once again, walked out of the room. To be honest the magical creature was not what Hector had been expecting from the rather expressive descriptions Sarah usually used to talk about him; granted she rarely did on anything less than three glasses of wine so he knew to not take phrases like “conniving, morally bankrupt, degenerate bastard” and “did I ever mention he’s, like, really pretty” to heart. Hector Reyes was good at reading people - it came in handy in his line of work when he frequently had to suss out the real person underneath the act or other people’s assumptions and the king sitting across from him was not any of those things. Though he certainly was pretty.

“Should we be concerned? She's been out there for a while?”

“Absolutely not, we'd be in more trouble if she was out there for less than half an hour. I've known her long enough to know when she needs her space. She gets frustrated easily,” Hector gave the king a look, “and she has her ways of cooling down so she’s not so …. Impetuous.”

Jareth drummed his long fingers on the tabletop as he looked out the large balcony doors at the woman sprawled on the floor in front of them and Hector took note: impatient, but not in a cruel way, just not used to waiting for others. Frustrated, but trying.

“She’s been through a lot you know,” Hector cautiously offered. “She doesn’t really like change, even though she handles a bit of chaos just fine. No one I’d rather have on my side in a crisis, but it’s hard for her, you know. That crap with her mom, no one should have to go through that…. It messes with your ability to trust. It’s what she needs most - people she can rely on trust, people she can trust, without that she’s just as lost as the rest of us, but with it - she could… I don’t know...”

“Move the stars?” The king’s face was blank, but his eyes were still on the door.

Hector quirked his head to the side and took a sip from his glass, “I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“You’ve known her for a long time?”

“Yes, since we were in college together. We worked together at a summer program and ended up doing our Masters work together.”

“And you share … similarities in your past? It is clear from your lack of panic that this is not the first time you’ve ventured beyond mortal borders.”

Hector laughed, it was just the tip of the iceberg. “I guess that’s one way of putting it, but yes, this is not my first time ‘over here’, though I’ve never been in this kingdom. But then again not many have, am I right?”

“An astute observation. You’ve been ‘over here’ before and yet you are an adult, of some variety,” the Goblin King said with a dismissive wave of his gloved hand.

“I think it’s important to stay young at heart. Brooding apathy and self-loathing doesn’t work for all of us, amigo.” 

The king's mismatched eyes narrowed as the two men assessed each other; Hector gave the barest raise of a thick black eyebrow and to his surprise the Goblin King cracked a smile, letting lose a smooth laugh. “This is true. It is a talent one must hone over time and would truly be a daunting task for a lesser man… but something tells me you are not a lesser man.”

“You’re going to make me blush your majesty.”

“I would guess you had an Event in your past too, yet here you are - aware and I assume with your memory intact of your adventures. That is… uncommon. Most who venture this way are children and their memories fade as their minds push out the imagination that gets in the way of accepting the world for what it thinks it should be. There are some who retain that awe and wonder - sometimes they simply remain trapped in their youth, some go a little mad and some,” he glanced out the door again and Hector watched the small muscles around his eyes and at the edge of his mouth move ever so slightly before the sly eyes moved back to the table, “are never what quite they seem. So which are you? Childish? Mad? Or something else altogether?”

Hector set down the glass of wine he had been tipping back and forth, “Me? I’m just a kid who used to go run around in the woods after my grandma would kick me out of the house for driving her up the wall and I used to get lost in the woods… a lot. You have a lot of adventures when you get lost so much.”

“Yes, I’m sure you do.”

Hector leaned forward in his chairs, elbows on the table in front of him, “I could ask the same of you? What are you, your majesty? Are you what she says, some devious malcontent bent on evil schemes of evil?”

“I,” he paused, mulling over the words, “well, let’s say I too had a penchant for losing my way when I was younger.”

They fell into silence again, this time not as uncomfortable. Hector passed the time by counting the number of times the king's eyes flicked to the door, before he spoke again, “Do you know that she never got lost? When she ran the Labyrinth that is. She got turned around and stuck and frustrated, but she never got lost. No matter what setback befell her, and there were plenty, she always knew exactly where to go. I never saw such a thing in all my years here.”

Hector watched as the lines around the king's eyes softened, just a bit, and Hector allowed himself a smile. “Well, Sarah has always been good at finding lost things. Me? I’m pretty useless. I lose my car keys at least once a week and she can walk into a room and find them in minutes. Do you know that once she found them in my freezer? I was tearing around my apartment in a panic and we were supposed to leave for a conference ten minutes ago and she walks in, takes a deep breath and boom, walks over to the fridge, opens the freezer, and tosses me the keys. She’s something else.”

“Yes, she’s quite… special isn’t she.” 

Hector sipped on his wine, it was rather good, and smiled. “But you’ve known that for a while haven’t you?”

“Yes,” he said softly.

**********************************

Sarah heard the door open, the edge of the carved wood scrap along the stonework. Footsteps soon followed - not the heavy, intentional rubber soles of Hector's boots, a softer, more careful step came out onto the balcony

A voice, soft and careful, drifted from above her. “Sarah?”

She let out an exasperated sigh, “Sarah is not here right now. Leave a message at the beep.”

“Well, then -”

“Beep.”  She peeked over the crook of her arm, and couldn’t help but smile at the befuddled look on the Goblin King’s face. “Sorry, couldn’t help it, “ she said with a grin.

“Quite. May we talk?” He asked, reaching a hand down. She looked at it feeling annoyed; of course, he would be so courteous when she was angry with him.

“Fine.” She placed her hand in his and allowed him to pull her from her place on the ground, his long fingers wrapped gently around hers as he led her to the balcony. She leaned forward, arms resting on the stone railing, though instead of looking out across the labyrinth she now looked up at the dim night sky.

“You once said you wouldn’t move the stars for anyone.”

“I beg your pardon, my dear?”

“You said, at the end, that you wouldn’t move the stars for anyone, but there are no stars in your sky, no moon either and your sun… it’s strange. It’s there, but it’s not. Kind of a lie, don’t you think, so say you won’t move stars when you don’t have any.”

“Only in part, I suppose. We have stars and a moon and a sun, but they’re hidden so they can’t be used to navigate the maze.”

“I don’t like it, it feels too lonely. When I was a kid I used to talk to the stars. I’d imagine they were friends and I could tell secrets too or sometimes I’d imagine they were my mom and I’d tell them all the things I wanted to tell her when she was too busy for a phone call. They were something I could count on being there and well...” She trailed off and he let the silence hang in the air.

She felt him lean down next to her, “Well the Labyrinth can be a lonely place. It’s cut off from the rest of the Underground, so I suppose it’s fitting that even our skies are lonely.”

“Has it always been like this?”

“No.”

“You made it like this?”

“I had to…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Out on the balcony, in from the balcony, out on the balcony, in from the balcony... Sarah and Jareth are just a pair of cats.
> 
> ******  
> Oh my goodness, I did not mean for this update to take so long - but life is life and it's a bit crazy with online school, and an impromptu daycare related quarantine and the like... and then someone had to go give me a copy of an amazing book that was only like 700 pages long and I read it in 4 days completely ignore just about everything else in my life. I also had to figure out a couple of plot points, mainly having to do with our favorite Sareth shipper, Hector, I want to make sure he doesn't fall into the "sidekick with no character arc" trope, but I think I've landed on just the right thing.
> 
> So here we are - more backstory to come and then ... adventure! Thank you all for sticking around this long.... chapter 18 and we haven't left the castle yet, I'm impressed. Hopefully, I'll be back in a week with the next chapter


	19. Intermission II

_ The new king appeared on the balcony of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City and promptly crumbled into a heap on the ground. His head ached and his vision swam as his heart pounded in his chest like it wished to escape from his body. He had expected a test of some kind - magical transference never came easily, but he had not expected to be stripped bare - his every shortcoming, every failing and every flaw to be laid out in front of him. He had entered those gates full of self-assurance, pride and a plan and it had seen it all. Sumaire had been right, in this little, dingy kingdom of unwanted things lay so much power - he could feel it coursing in waves through his body. _

_ He could hear a voice just over his shoulder and he knew the voice though the words sounded muffled and distant. He pressed himself up from the ground, his body aching and lungs burning to stand on trembling legs; shaking knees threatening to give out at any moment. _

_ He could see a face in front of him - a face he knew, a face he thought he knew so well. Now he saw with new eyes and could see that behind those eyes, eyes which used to shine with mischief now only radiate greed and hunger. He felt a wave of nausea rise up as he saw with the new magic past the facade and into the truth of the sinister creature which stood in front of him. _

_ “You did it! We have it!” He could hear the voice cracking with glee and he felt disgust at the sound. The man began to come towards him, but Jareth put out a hand, willing that it would not tremble like the rest of him. _

_ “I did it,” he rasped, his throat raw and his voice ragged. “I did it, I have it and you, Sumaire, you never will.” _

_ The man stopped in his tracks, his brows furrowed and his eyes darkened, “Do you think you can stand up to me, Goblin King,” the man sneered, spitting out the title as so many had before. “We had a deal, you insipid, spoiled little brat. We had a plan and you will not get in my way. Do you think a little goblin magic makes you powerful enough to stand up to me -” _

_ At his word Jareth felt the magic around him, it shot through his body and he could only watch as his arm gave an involuntary twitch, a turn of the wrist, and there on the tips of his long fingers sat a perfectly clear crystal globe. Jareth could feel his eyes go wide as the man stopped in his speech and they froze in place for the briefest of moments. He could see the man's mouth begin to move, trying to shape the questions he would not be able to ask. _

_ “You,” Jareth said as a thing smiled snaked its way across his lips, “have no power over me.” _

******************************* 

“The title of Goblin King is not hereditary, did you know that? This was not something I was born into. The goblins have no monarchy of their own, and long ago proved to lack most traits desirable in leadership, namely patience, intelligence, and sobriety. They also proved undesirable to most other kingdoms in the underground and as a result were tossed about from kingdom to kingdom until they landed here on the outskirts of the Labyrinth like so many lost and unwanted things tend to do and over time they were given a King and like the goblins themselves the title was unwanted and despised. It was a place to put something you wanted to forget about. I was, perhaps, the first Goblin King to want the title.”

Sarah scoffed, “You? You wanted to rule a kingdom of maniacal, drunken, poultry obsessed arsonists?”

“Well, I will admit that the chickens did come as a surprise,” he replied with a soft laugh. “However, I did not say I desired it for the right reasons. As I said I was mixed up in something wretched in my younger years. What started as nothing more to pass the long years was manipulated into something far worse, myself included, and by the time the wheels were in place I was too blind, too naive, and too greedy to see what was truly at stake. All that changed the day I took the throne. We knew that the Goblin King had a connection to the Labyrinth and that was what we're after, foolish enough to think that once ensconced here we could manipulate that connection to our advantage. I thought we were after magic that we could siphon off bit by bit to our own uses, to bolster the mind-numbing decadence that we become so used to, but Sumaire saw more - he saw a chance to use the lost and unwanted thing that ended up here to fuel his desires. When I became king, all of that became clear - while I sought magic and power, he sought the Runners and the wished away children. The Labyrinth showed this to me, allowing me to see his true intentions. I may be the King of the Goblins, but I am merely a servant of the Labyrinth - we did not realize that - and as such I did what I had to do to protect it. I banished him and his ilk from the Kingdom and shut us off from the rest of the Underground. I thought I had saved us, but ...”

It took Sarah a moment to realize his voice had trailed off, his voice was different when it wasn’t being used to be sarcastic or spiteful, it was smooth and calming.

“Is that why you say it is so lonely here?” She asked in a whisper, not wanting to burst the quiet moment.

“Yes, I never wanted to be used like that again, it was too tempting, I was too gullible… so I, a man who loved nothing more than the profligacy my station had long allowed, chose solitude, to surround myself with nothing but my subjects for company in order to do what needed to be done…. And here I am and here I’ll stay until that job is done.”

Sarah let out the breath she had been holding in, “You know…. I’m beginning to think you might not be  _ quite _ as villainous as I thought after all.”

He didn’t respond, though she saw the barest hint of a smile out of the corner of her eyes, instead she felt the slightest pressure on her hand. Sarah looked down to realize that she had never let go of his hand after he helped her up and now her fingers lay wrapped in his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little something for the shippers.


	20. Compliments

_ Once upon a time, there was a little boy who could befriend anything. It was a gift, his mother would say. It was a pain in the backside, his grandmother would say. Anywhere he would go he would make friends, and not just “join my game” friends to be used up and forgotten - no the boy could get anyone young or old into his confidence. He could make anyone feel so at ease that he would come home pockets full of treasures and stories and promises and secrets. One day the little boy, bored with the friends in his neighborhood went in search of new friends and found a world full of the - little creatures that hide behind leaves and grumbly, crumbly things that sprung out from beneath rocks and people (or almost people) who crossed his path. He made so many new friends and then one day he learned that even in friendship, not everything was as it seemed. _

**************************

Hector was giving her a look, not just any look, the type of look that, between friends, spoke mountains in a glance. The look spoke full, complete sentences which included phrases like “Are you crazy?” and “This is definitely a bad idea.” However, the look was wasted on his friend who was currently giving a look to Goblin King. This look also spoke full, complete sentences, though this look contained more four-letter words. This look was not lost on its recipient, who was giving her a look back which like the first two looks, was also quite articulate though it only repeated the same phrase over and over again “You are maddening.”

“I honestly don’t see what the problem is,” Sarah said in a huff. “I thought you said you were going to help me.”

“Help you, yes. Stand by while you rush headfirst into danger? No. We need to think through this.”

Sarah turned to her friend, finally seeing his look. “Hector, aren’t you going to back me up - ugh no, you’re not.”

He shrugged. “Sorry, Sarah, but I’m with his majesty on this one - wishing yourself away to the scary magical bad guys is a terrible idea.”

“See,” Jareth said, “even one of your buffoonish do-good companions understands. Perhaps listen to the one with sound ideas.”

“Thanks, man,” Hector replied, reaching out and clapping the Goblin King on the shoulder, “that was almost a compliment.”

“Well, it is true that you are a slight improvement of the feral knight, the traitorous dwarf or the monstrous rock beast,” Jareth said, carefully removing the man's hand from his should and brushing at the spot it had been.

Hector gave a laugh, “Don’t worry we’ll work on it.”

“Ugh,” Sarah sighed, “please don’t. I don’t think I can handle you two becoming friends on top of all the other catastrophes in my life right now and anyways you're detracting from the point. If I don’t wish myself to them how am I supposed to get there and when we don’t even know where there is?”

“We might not know where they are, my dear, but we do know where they are not and that is a start.”

Sarah gave him another look through her dark hair which was continually escaping from its hair tie; it had a similar vocabulary to the previous one.

“Yes, precious, you’ve already said that,” he said with a grin. “Anyways, we know where they are not. They are not here, and they are not in any Kingdom in the Underground that I am certain of. We might be on our own here, but we are not cut off. If the Committee had its talons sunk in somewhere I would have known about them by now. So they are somewhere that they can move about unseen with no one interfering.”

Sarah let out a frustrated moan as she started to pace around the room. “They have to be somewhere. Can’t you just retrace your steps, figure out where you put them last? If they’re not in one of these Kingdoms then how can they still be in the Underground, but you say they have to be here. This should be simple if they’re not here, the should be out there and if they’re out there they have to be somewhere. They have to be somewhere, they can’t belong to nowhere! Nowhere is not a place things can be.”

It was a strange feeling like the air had been sucked out of the room. Sarah could even swear that for a moment the fire stopped flickering in the grate. The two men standing opposite her were as different as night and day. One tall and fair and the other dark and stout, but both wore the same ashen wide eyed expression.

“What is it? Guys… hey!” She snapped her fingers and the strange duo blinked. “You’re scaring me. What is it?”

“Damn it… Nowhere. I should have thought of it before.” The Goblin King was running his hands through his hair. “Damn it, I should have remembered… but you can’t get to Nowhere. They shouldn’t be in Nowhere.”

It was his turn to look frantic and harried and Sarah found herself in front of him in a heartbeat, “What are you saying?” She asked, reaching out a hand to still a hand scraping through his hair. He started at the touch and Sarah found herself the recipient of another look, though this one did not speak clearly. 

“They can be nowhere, precious because Underground Nowhere is a place. It is a space between, but they shouldn’t have been able to get there. I don’t know how they got there and I don’t know how to get you there. I’m sorry, Sarah,” the sadness in his voice sent a shiver down her spine.

“You might not,” said a voice next to them. Hector still looked wide-eyed and grey around the edges, “but I do. Come on, let’s sit. This is going to be a long story.”

Hector, hands stuffed in his pockets and shoulders hunched and defeated, shuffled over to the chairs in front of the fireplace. Sarah stood, shocked, in place until the slightest pressure on the small of her back broke through her shock and knew she had no fight left as she let herself be guided to the lounge, the Goblin King retiring behind it as she sat.

Hector took a deep breath, all the laughter out of his voice now, “I guess it’s only appropriate to start it this way...once upon a time there was a little boy who could befriend anything…”

********************

Much later Sarah found herself curled up on the lounge staring into the fire as it slowly danced around the grill. Her friend had long since retired, the weight of his story off his shoulders. How could he have known, Sarah found herself thinking, he was just a little boy. Just a little boy making another friend in the forest.

Hector had come across a figure in black in the woods behind his house on one of his trips and with the audacity and fearlessness of children had approached it, hoping to make new friends. But not all friends are worthy and not all friends are good and this new friend of Hector had seen not an amicable little boy with boundless empathy, but an opportunity too good to be squandered and over the course of many meetings had used the friendly little child to gather information and promises and secrets until they had to want they wanted, something that had made no sense to a little boy - the way to get to Nowhere.

It made her head swim and her heart felt heavy as her head slipped from her hand onto the arm of the lounge. She felt something soft and cool being placed on her shoulders and willed her eyes to open once more. Before her knelt the king, pulling a blanket over her.

“Rest, my dear,” he said, his voice soothing and willing her to drift back to sleep. “You have had a trying day and I fear you will need your strength for what comes next.”

Not quite knowing what she was doing Sarah found herself reaching out and taking his hand as he began to move away. He stopped, staring at the gesture.

“Thank you,” she said drowsily.

A small smile formed on his face, no harsh lines or sardonic grins, just a simple smile. “As always, everything I do….” He trailed off and pressed that small smile to her fingertips. Sarah felt her eyes closed as she heard, “and should you need me …”

***************

Sarah’s eyes closed with his words echoing in her head along with music that sounded so familiar this time. She looks around and recognized the ballroom once again. She could feel the lustrous silk, the color of the moon on the water, on her legs as the sea of people thrummed around her. She caught herself looking, searching once again; she needed something, what was she looking for.

“Jareth.” The name escaped her lips without thought, the answer to her question and she glanced up as the dancers parted and a familiar shock of pale gold hair caught her eye as he stepped between the dancers, his jacket the deep blue of first moments of twilight, metallic threads and precious stones glinting through like the first stars.

They stood close, not touching, as the dancers swirled around them. 

“You called?” He asked that hint of trouble back in his voice. “Is there something you need?”

She looked at him, her mind racing back and forth, “I think….. I ….” she took a deep breath, where else could one be honest if not in a dream. “I am worried, and more than a little afraid. I think I need a distraction, just for a little while.”

He studied her seriously before stepping ever so slightly closer. Sarah could feel a hand, gentle and strong, wrap around her back while another cupped her hand and lifted her arm, not demanding, rather asking to be given, to trust. 

“Well, precious thing,” he said leaning close to one ear, a roguish glint in his words, “you are in luck that I am quite distracting.”

She pulled back for a moment, but he did not release her, but drew her close and caught her eyes, they gave each other looks - hers contained far fewer four-letter words this time, but his still sad "You are maddening" and then, looks complete they laughed like old friends and he swept her ever so softly into the dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, that was one satisfying chapter to write.
> 
> I hope you're enjoying it too! Thank you for all the lovely comments - they really do drive the speed that I write at. If you're enjoying this please consider leaving a "kudos" so others can find this story too.


	21. Stepping Stones

“Sleep well?” 

It was an innocuous enough question, but it still made Sarah trip over her own feet on the last stair, catching herself at the last moment on the banister and landing with a solid thud in the courtyard.

“Hm,” Hector mused, “should I take that as a ‘not very well’ or ‘very well indeed’?”

Sarah brushed her hair back from her face, “How about a ‘mind your own damn business Reyes’?”

“Ahh, the usual then,” Hector said with a wink. Sarah replied with a scowl and he made a mental note to not mention the small flecks of glitter she shook out of her hair. “Alright up you get boss, time for an adventure.”

He reached out a hand but stopped looking just over her shoulder. Sarah turned to see three pairs of black, beady eyes peeking out from under a gnarled shrubbery next to the staircase. Sarah couldn’t help but smile at the grubby little faces, all eyes and noses, and wild hair.

“Hello there,” she said, smiling from ear to ear. “It’s okay. You can come out.”

The three little goblins looked back and forth at each other and in unison rolled out from the topiary. Rolled was definitely appropriate as they all seemed to be sharing a rather disreputable piece of clothing that at one time may have been a tailored men’s trench coat. They scuttled over to her, black eyes wide as one arm of the trenchcoat reached out with something grasped in fingers that may have been talons or just in need of a proper trim.

“Is this for me?” Sarah asked, and extended her hand out. All three goblin heads nodded in a surprising unison as it dropped its parcel in her hand. She had expected the thing to be either moist, breathing or oozing, but was pleasantly surprised to find it cool and solid in her palm. She lifted it up to see that it was simply a rock, vaguely triangular and of the same sandstone as the stonework of the Labyrinth. At one tip a hole had been worn through the rock, forming a perfectly round opening.

“Oh thank you,” Sarah said turning the hag stone over in her palm. “This is a very special gift, thank you very much. I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused the last time I was here.”

The trenchcoat goblins beamed up at her, all jagged teeth and gaping mouths looking surprisingly innocent.

“Not trouble,” the middle goblin piped up. “Fun! Goblins had much fun.”

Sarah cocked her head to one side, “But your city, it was a bit of a mess.”

The trenchcoat triad shrugged, “Is always a mess. Goblins like mess. Lady makes mess. Goblins like Lady. King like Lady.”

“Oh, he does? I doubt it, I’m afraid. If you think that I’m worried about what your basis for comparison is. All we seem to do is shout at each other.”

The talon hand shot up to stop her as the middle goblin tsked and tutted at her response. “We know, Lady. King like Lady because he shouts. King like goblins.” The two other goblins nodded enthusiastically. “King no like chickens.” The goblins boobed their heads solemnly as if it was a great tragedy. “King shout at goblins, but King kicks chickens. King no kicks Lady…” The middle goblin trailed off, gesturing at her as if to encourage her to finish its sentence which clearly the epitome of logic and sense. It waggled a particularly impressive set of bush eyebrows as the moments passed

“So because we shout and don’t kick at each other we’re friends,” she asked with an eyebrow raised quizzically. The trenchcoat goblins nodded earnestly. Sarah smiled and leaned in conspiratorially, “You know that doesn’t seem very fair to the chickens.”

The middle goblin opened its mouth to reply when its eyes went wide and with a poof and crack it was gone.

“To be honest,” a voice drawled smoothly behind her, “Goblin City Black Deviants are well known in this world for being the most conniving, black-hearted, treacherous cretins this side of the bog. They rightly deserve what they get and will happily plot your downfall if given the chance and have a long history plotting against the various Goblin Kings of the past.”

Sarah brushed off her pants and stood to face the poultry beleaguered monarch who was nonchalantly pulling on a black glove.

“Conniving anarchist poultry? Man, this place has everything.” Hector said with a laugh clapping the king on the back.

“You have no idea,” Jareth said sardonically with a roll of his eyes. “What did my loving subjects see fit to give you, my dear? A year-old half-eaten apple? A ball of communal toe lint? A worm on a stick?”

“Ugh, man, that’s gross.”

“That, man, was an incomplete list of this year's birthday gifts. The subjects of Goblin King are quite creative in their gift giving.” Hector looked like he had more questions, Jareth looked like he answers and Sarah wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“No,” she interrupted. “It’s just a rock.” She held out the stone in her hand. The Goblin King took it between his fingers, rolling it effortlessly over the top of his knuckles.

“You must have impressed them quite a bit to receive such a present.” He held the small hole to his eye. “These are rather rare and precious here. The Goblins carry them as good luck and talismans of protection and they claim that looking through the hole shows the looker things as they really are.” He rolled the stone once more across his graceful fingers before concealing it in his palm. Sarah thought to protest, and then with a flick of his wrist, his palm lay flat, the hag stone lying in his palm with a delicate chain running through the hole. “All things considered a precious gift, best to keep in near at hand.”

“Thank you,” Sarah stumbled, taking the gift from his hand and slipping the long chain over her hair.

Hector cleared his throat, though he stood staring determinedly at something above him in the sky.

“Yes,” Sarah cleared her throat, “well, I suppose I should welcome all the protection I can get going up against evils unknown and hardships unnumbered. So anyway, where are we going?”

Jareth glanced at Hector, “You, friendly one, know the answer to that question.”

Hector dug a toe into the ground, avoiding eye contact like it was a particularly contagious plague. “I’m really, really sorry Sarah,” he mumbled into the ground before turning to the Goblin King. “Los duendes told me about it, but I never went there. They called it las montanas ausentes; the Absent Mountains. Do you know it?”

Jareth tapped a black boot for a moment as he thought. “The Lathair, that must be it. It is not a place many intentionally go even in the Underground. Of course, it had to be somewhere entirely inconvenient.”

“My apologies our dangerous, life-threatening quest is not near enough to be back in time for a nightcap.” Sarah huffed, crossing her arms.

Jareth twirled his fingers and met her derision with a brilliant smile, “Apologies accepted, precious. Now hold still.” And with a snap of his fingers, the light went out.

Sarah felt something heavy all around her, it was actual darkness and she made to shake it from her. A heavy, woolen hood fell from her head and she held out her arms to find them covered by a thick black cape. She looked up at Hector whom she assumed was similarly adorned. While hers appeared to cut off at the knee, trimmed just right for movement, Hectors looked about three sizes too big and he was clearly struggling to free his hands enough under all the fabric to push back his hood. She could hear his muffled voice declaring, “I’m good, this is fine.” The Goblin King also now wore a black cloak, though it fit him like a fine suit and billowed slightly in the wind. Hector also appeared to be adorned in large black boots that slouched around his calves and Sarah moved the fabric from around her legs to show that her feet also sat in fine black leather boots.

“What is all this? We look like we’re about to go rob graves.”

Jareth walked over to Hector and in a surprisingly friendly move helped him right the hood of his cloak around him, motioning for them to join Sarah where she stood, rather feebly flapping her arms under her cloak.

“This, my dear, is something you will thank me for in just a few minutes, which I hope you will remember fondly,” he reached out and gave Hector a firm clap on the back causing her friend to stumble and fall and… disappear. “Because I have a feeling you will not thank me for this.” 

Before she could process what she just saw Sarah felt a hand around her waist as he pulled her tightly against him. 

“Just breath, precious.” He whispered in her ear as the ground fell out from underneath her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: in Russia hag stones are considered the home of the "Kurinyi Bog" which translates to "The Chicken God". Let's just sit and appreciate this for a moment.
> 
> Also happy Clucktober Fest to our favorite deviant chickens.
> 
> Also... three goblins in a trenchcoat is me... I'm three goblins in a trenchcoat.


	22. Close Enough

When Sarah was younger she had often considered teleportation to be the best superpower. The ability to pop and poof to or away from anywhere at the drop of a hat seemed like the best way to get around chores and bedtimes and Sunday dinners. Now, as the magic dropped away, she knew she would never underestimate the power of her own two feet. 

When Toby was six they had taken an amusement park trip and she had allowed herself to be talked into riding on “The Towering Titan” that was fewer peaks and valleys of speed and more just a straight jump from a tall height. She’d hated it; hated the feeling of heart dropping into her shoes as she clung to harness as the machine had oscillated up and down, drop, up and down, drop. She had spent the next hour laying on a bunch, trying to keep down a lemonade as strangers walked past and told her she looked a little green.

“Do not do that again,” she said with her head between her knees, determined not to be sick on the shiny black boots in front of her. A gloved hand reached down in front of her and after a moment's consideration, she begrudgingly allowed him to help her to her feet.

“It would be easier, my dear,” he said as he brushed stray strands that clung to her cheek and eyelashes, “if you would stop fighting against everything I do.”

Sarah begrudgingly took the proffered hand, “But if I stopped fighting you we wouldn’t have these little moments,” her head fell to his chest. “Now stop moving or I’m going to be sick all over your fancy shoes.”

“Yes, dear.”

As her head cleared Sarah began to notice that around her the weather had changed. No longer was the dry golden air of the Goblin Kingdom warm against her skin, instead a sharp chill cut through the woolen cloak and she shuddered.

She raised her head and looked around. To call the landscape around her bleak would be too inviting and cozy, instead what surrounded them now was a desolation she could feel in the pit of her stomach. Hector stood a few feet away, his normally shining eyes dull in the grey, colorless light, his shoulder hunched in tension around his ears. The ground was hard and unforgiving, with judged stones poking out all around them growing larger and larger into spears of rock that reached into the sky. The sky held no clouds, but also no color, just shades of grey growing darker in the horizon. Around them the wind whipped again and hard, frozen shards of rain began to fall pricking on the exposed skin of their faces.

“Where are we?” Hector finally asked.

Jareth took a breath, “The Lathair, the Absent Mountains. A singularly peculiar place in the Underground. If the Goblin Kingdom is where unwanted things end up, the Lathair is the place where lost and forgotten things go. The Absent Mountains collect the things that no one remembers they want or need.”

“It sounds like an Oubliette.” 

“Close, but not quite. An Oubliette is where you put something to forget about it, the Lathair collects the things you don’t even remember you’ve forgotten.” 

Another chill ran down Sarah’s spine and it was not a result of the wind. “So how do we get to Nowhere? Do we need to answer a riddle door or climb to the highest peak?” She looked to her friend who buried his head further into his oversized hood. “What is it? Hector?”

“I’m really sorry, Sarah,” came the muffled reply as he slowly lifted his head, “but we have to go through the mountain, not around it.”

“Oh no,” Sarah started to feel dizzy and her blood pounded through her heart. She stumbled a bit and she felt a hand reach out for her elbow.

“Sarah, whatever is the matter? Are you all right?”

She looked at him, her gaze suddenly hard again. “I’m fine.”

“No, clearly you’re not.” He looked at her intently and squirmed under his sharp focus. “Are you afraid of going underground… but you were never afraid of the caves and tunnels, before.”

“Well being chased by terror machines, being lost in the dark, dropped down holes and buried under mountains of unwanted garbage has a way of changing a person and I got a nice bit of claustrophobia thanks to you.”

His grip loosened on her arm, “I never knew… I never meant it to…”

She looked at him, waiting for the moment he met her eyes, “Consequences aren’t always what we think will happen.”

She shook out of his grasp and stalked past the two men. Jareth looked at Hector who just shook his head and patted the king firmly on the back, “Come on your majesty, this is going to be a bit of a hike.”

*******************

A few hours later the hike had turned into a trek and when the rain started it quickly went from a trek to a slog as the trio climbed over rocky outcrops and through thickets of brambles. They moved cautiously, in a miserable silence through the rocks and muck that surrounded them for what seemed like hours, slipping on mud, scraping knuckles and knees on boulders and branches alike. 

_ It just goes on and on...  _

“What are we looking for?” Sarah shouted over the sheets of rain around her as she scrambled behind her friend.

“The way in,” he shouted over his shoulder. “They make it hard to find so we just have to keep looking.”

She pushed the wet hair from her face again, “Damn it, but what does it look like?”

He was looking out above and beyond her, so she reached out and grabbed his arm. “Do you even know what we’re looking for? Hector!”

He shouted back, shaking her grip off and throwing his hands into the air. “The way in! That is what we’re looking for. It’s just the way in and it will show up when we find it and we just have to keep going.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me! We’ve been marching around in the mud and the rain to find something and you don’t even know what it is?” Sarah let out a yell and marched away from him, lashing out against the nearest rock wall. She beat her fists against the stones, fighting with every ounce of strength not to repeat the words…

“It’s not fair!” Hector was truly exasperated now as he slid down into the mud at her feet. “It just goes on and on. I’m sorry Sarah, I don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

Something tickled at the back of her brain seeing her friend defeated and slumped on the ground, something was familiar, but before she could piece it together Jareth began to laugh beside her. Sarah and Hector looked at the baffling, waterlogged man beside them as he laughed a deep, rolling laugh.

“It’s the oldest trick in the book.” He glanced around, up and down, tilting his head this way and that like an agitated bird hopping about, until he suddenly stopped and smiled that wide, toothy grin that always made her just a little nervous. He motioned for them to stand with him.

“I don’t see anything except more rocks,” Hector cried with an edge Sarah rarely heard from her friend. Oh, that frustration, she remembered it so well from her Labyrinth run, getting so frustrated when only…

“We’re not looking at it right,” she said in a whisper.

Jareth grinned, not the wild, toothy mischievous grin, but the one Sarah realized she liked quite a bit, the one that stretched up to and softened his eyes. 

“That’s my girl, you were paying attention.” 

“Hector,” she said, turning to her friend. “This place is mixed up, you’ll never find what you're looking for just by looking for it. Walk over to that pile of rocks and tell me what you see.”

Hector looked at the two next to him, all bright eyes and smiles, and was convinced for a moment that he had driven his friends mad, but nevertheless, he walked over the pile of stones in front of him.

“There’s nothing here,” he cried over his shoulder. “It’s just…” His words trailed off as he began to turn away and the world shifted ever so slightly and no longer was he standing in a jumble of rocks and boulders, but in the mouth of a cave. His jaw dropped as he looked around him, and he could hear Sarah laugh, and the Goblin King chuckled as he poked his head in and out of the cave entrance watching for that moment when it changed back and forth around him.

“Oldest trick in the book, huh?” Sarah asked the grinning king as Hector disappeared further into the cave calling for them to follow him.

He glanced down at her from the corner of her eye, “It’s amazing how many people refuse to see what’s right in front of them.”

Sarah’s smile dropped away as she took in the dark cave mouth in front of her, she could feel her body start to shake and before she knew it she had reached out and wrapped her fingers around his. He looked down at her gesture and she knew he could feel her shaking through his gloves.

“Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered,” she whispered to herself.

Jareth wrapped his hand around hers in response as he whispered back, “I’ll be there for you…” as they walked together into the dark nothingness of the mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, this chapter took forever to write y'all.... I never thought it would take so long to figure out how to get into a freaking cave... anyways, moving forward!


	23. This Little Light of Mine

Sarah opened her eyes as they stepped through the mouth and blinked as the blackness stayed around her no matter how many times she blinked and stretched her eyes open wide. She started to breathe quicker when something flickered in her vision and a small light hovered in front of her, slowly growing brighter.

“What’s going on? Why is it so dark?” 

His fingers, still laced around her hand, squeezed tighter as he spoke, “It’s alright Sarah, we are here.”

His face swam into view as the light in front of her grew.

“Hector!”

“I’m here, Sarah, I’m here!” He wasn’t too far away from her and she broke away to reach for her friend as he came into view.

“Oh gods, I thought something had already eaten you.”

“Hey,” he said putting an arm around her, “don’t you worry about me. Remember, I’ve spent a lot of time with las patatas, it’s hard for things to sneak up on me in the dark.”

Sarah, still holding tight to her friend, turned back to the man beside them. “But why is it so dark? We just walked through the entrance to the cave, why isn’t the outside still behind us?”

“We did not just step through the mouth of a cave,” Jareth replied, “we walked through a faerie circle. They tend to be a bit more, shall we say, dramatic.”

“Faerie circle,” Hector interrupted, “I’ve seen plenty of those in the forests. Mushroom rings and things like that. I didn’t see any ring on the ground.”

Jareth laughed sardonically, “And it’s thinking like that my fine knave, which allows people to walk into them all the time. Do you think faerie would be satisfied with just simple rings on the ground? So easy to see and avoid?” He tsked, and chuckled. “Of course not, it’s almost a contest in some parts to find the ways to hide them in plain sight - spider webs and waterfalls, mirages and doors that are much more than doors. Sarah should be able to tell you all about them because -”

“- the Labyrinth is full of them,” Sarah completed for him.

The Goblin King caught her eye in the dim light and beamed a wicked smile just to her before stride toward them, “Now my dear, I have a gift.”

In the dim light, she could see him flick his wrist and twirl his long fingers until a delicate glass ball rested atop them, slowly rolling back and forth atop his fingers until it rolled off into his open palm in one fluid movement. He began tossing back and forth between his hands, rolling over the tips of the fingers of each hand and as it did it grew larger and larger began to glow, emitting light like the one that hovered in front of her. When at last he judged it complete and without warning the globe was in the air sailing toward her and with a small yelp Sarah untangled herself from her friend, grasping it at the last moment and pulled it close to her.

It was smooth under her fingers, but she had expected it to be cold; instead, it felt pleasantly warm to her touch, like a hot water bottle or a warm cup of tea. She swore that it pulsed, faintly, but rhythmically beneath her fingers and something about it felt… comforting.

From the added light her globe emitted she could see him waving his hands around again and suddenly another globe was sailing through the air toward them and without a thought, Sarah reached out a hand and grasped the globe before it hit Hector square in the nose. She grinned back at the Goblin King as she caught a slight frown cross his face at her catch as she found herself thanking her parents for that summer of softball camp in high school.

Hector reached out and took the second glob from her hand, if he had realized its original trajectory he gave no sign as he held it to his face. It was considerably smaller than hers but glowed all the same though the light it gave off was almost muddy compared to the warm glow of hers.

“Thanks, man, for the um, nightlights?” Hector said earnestly though a little confused as he tossed his in the air a few times, glancing around to see the cave as it lit its trajectory up and down.

“That nightlight as you so call it is a finely crafted piece of spellwork of my own making from my severely limited magic in this place. I would advise that you not use it to play catch,” the Goblin King sneered and Sarah rolled her eyes.

“Don’t let him bully you, Hector, I’ve seen these things bounce down stone stairs without a scratch,” Sarah retorted, throwing a withering glare at the king. “So they’re magicked light?”

“Yes, and a little bit more. If we should become separated or in danger, they have enough magic to transport you back to the Goblin Kingdom. Just throw it to the ground and make your intentions known.” He stepped forward to her, leaning down to her slightly. “Since your companion seems hard to shake, I did not include this, but Sarah should you find yourself feeling too… anxious in the caves, it should be able to help calm you.”

“Oh,” Sarah mumbled a little shocked at the thought.

“Sarah, I never meant for,” uncharacteristically he stumbled over his words and she reached out a hand to him.

“Thank you.” She gave his arm the slightest of squeezes, “It’s a good start.”

He smiled and the orange glow from her globe shone brighter for a moment before walking away with a demanding barrage of questions for Hector leaving her momentarily in the dark alone. Instinctively and surprising herself she hugged the strange warm globe to her chest and felt its warmth through her thick cloak and she would have sworn the faint pulse quickened, just for a moment. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter tonight, just to let you all know that I'm still here. It's been a long couple of weeks... and now that the world doesn't feel so helpless and depressing I'm all ready to write some pretty serious chapters. Thank you all for continuing to read with me.
> 
> Authors Note:  
> Sarah's globe, if needed will set down on that god-forsaken balcony I can't seem to write myself away from with all the grace and delicacy of a Disney princess transformation.
> 
> Hector's globe, if needed, will unceremoniously dump him inches from the edge of the Bog of Eternal Stench. Jareth will later swear on his own collection of frilly poet shirts that this was meant to put him in the vicinity of the brave Sir Didymus to call for aid... and has nothing to do with testosterone and jealousy, which is something only lesser beings experience, why should he, have you seen his pants, we're done with this conversation tra la la.


	24. Intermission III

_ He had done it and now he was lost. _

_ He had stood his ground and said the right words. With just a twist of the fine threads of power that now tugged on him from every direction he had cast them out from the Kingdom and locked the door tight.  _

_ Oh, how they had fought against him those few moments between disbelief and realization and it was those few minutes that allowed him to gather that raw, new power and pull. Magic had always come easy before; he had been more than proficient at it growing up - it came so easily, especially illusion magic and transfiguration, that he’d frustrated his tutors with his lack of practice and dedication. None of their lessons had every proven more than a temporary challenge, none of the magic he had wielded had ever been much of strain so it came as surprise when he let go of those strings of magic and fell promptly to the floor, legs buckling beneath him and his breath now coming in ragged, heavy waves. _

_ The new Goblin King lay on the paving stones for what seemed like hours as his new magic washed over him and did not know how long he had lain there when he heard a shuffle of feet and a very pronounced, “Tsk, tsk,” coming from over his head. _

_ He lifted heavy eyelids and images swam in front of him, slowly coming into focus. He realized quickly that he was no longer on the castle's balcony. Pushing himself up the Goblin King looked around; he now sat in the middle of a courtyard of the same worn yellow stone of the Labyrinth. It was decorated here or there with an ornamental shrub and in one corner sat a chair made of stone books and next to him was a person, hunched and shuffling, dressed in layers of, not rags, but rather a hodgepodge of different layers of clothes. _

_ Its wrinkled face broke into a wide smile when she saw his eyes focus on her. _

_ “Oh there you are little vnuk,” the old woman exclaimed as if he was her lost spectacles or a particularly wayward pet as if it was only a matter of time before they appeared. _

_ He looked around, perhaps she was speaking to someone else, “Are you speaking to me… madam?” _

_ “Oh always such a gentleman you were,” she said as she shuffled across the pavement as if looking for something. _

_ “I’m sorry, but have we met?” _

_ “Perhaps.” She shuffled in another direction, this time looking around the base of a potted shrub. _

_ He pinched the bridge of his nose and changed tactics. “Are you looking for something?” _

_ “Oh most definitely vnuk, Mama is always looking for something.” _

_ He rose unsteadily to his feet, “Perhaps I can help you find it. What does it look like?” _

_ She stopped and considered for a moment, “I don’t know, but I’ll know it when I see it.” Her eyes focused on him again, tousled hair and bedraggled clothes, and her eyes lit up. “Oh, there you are little vnuk! I was looking for you!” _

_ She ambled toward him, wrapping him in thin, wrinkled arms. “You are very good at being lost, vnuk,” she said, taking his hand in hers. _

_ “Being lost?” he asked, hoping that the rest of the creatures in the Labyrinth were more logical than this one. “Yes, I suppose I am.” _

_ “Am what, dear?” _

_ “Lost. I think I’m lost.”  _

_ She shook her wild mane of hair, “No, you’re not.” _

_ “I’m not? But you just said I was.” _

_ “Of course you’re not lost. You’re quite obviously here, silly vnuk.” _

_ “But you said I was quite good at being lost.” _

_ “And you are!” _

_ “But I’m not lost?” _

_ “Of course not, they are very different things.” _

_ “So if I’m not lost how do I know where to go?” _

_ “That is simple, you just start to walk and figure out where you’ve been and where you’re going and when you know that you’ll know where you are. Really, vnuk, it is quite obvious.” _

_ “And what about being lost? Will walking fix that?” _

_ “Of course not silly boy, why would walking help you when you’re lost? When you’re lost you have to find what you’re looking for. Really, vnuk, it is quite obvious.” _

_ “But I don't know what it looks like.” _

_ “Of course not, if you knew what it looked like you would have found it already, but you’ll know it when you see it.” _

_ “And what is it?” _

_ “The thing that will find you when you’re lost.”  _

_ “Now, I’m lost,” he drawled as she stopped them in front of a doorway in the stonewalls. Something felt different here, those little hooks of magic under his skin began to tug at him and he took one cautious step into what he hoped wouldn’t be certain death. _

_ “Ahh, yes, that does happen sometimes,” she said, patting his hand seriously as she gave him a little shove through the archway. “But do not be afraid little vnuk, no one is so lost that they can’t be found.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jareth left the courtyard thinking this surely must be the strangest and most baffling thing in the Labyrinth.... shows what he knows, don't it?
> 
> *******   
> So sorry for the delay my dears. I work in healthcare in a state that can't get it's sh*t together and I've been exhausted most nights, but I'm still working on this in my head and it's far from a dead story. I've greatly appreciated your comments and kudos, they keep me inspired!
> 
> *******  
> If you are curious, yes we've met this character before =)


	25. Knock, Knock...

They were lost. Well, as lost as people exploring a cave with a single path can be, but Sarah was quite convinced they were lost. The unlikely trio had been walking for hours, the light globes illuminating a clear path in front of them and the cave did not twist and it did not turn. There were no narrow passages or sharp drops or steep climbs. Hours upon hours seemed to stretch and build upon each other.

“It just keeps going,” Hector moaned as he jogged to catch up with the Goblin King who had taken up a position at the front of the line. “How is this even possible? How can a mountain contain one long road inside it?”

“This place loves the impossible,” Jareth muttered. 

“No wonder she loves it here so much.” Jareth stopped examining the dark nooks and crannies in the walls and glanced at the other man who was taking a large bite of a bread roll.

“No one loves it here, the Underground is a place things go when they’re unwanted. No one would choose to be here.” 

“You don’t see it, do you? Well, I guess you wouldn’t understand, “ Hector said, mouth full of bread; waving the remainder in his hand as if to dismiss the Goblin King.

“What wouldn’t I understand? Sarah belongs in her world,” Jareth looked at her friend, “right?”

“Sarah is… adaptable, but she's different. I think it has to do with what happened here. It changes you somehow. Has she ever told you what we do for work?”

“You work with children, you help them with their struggles.” The Goblin King paused, “It is admirable work you do.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Sarah you barely gave me a compliment,” Hector said with a laugh. “Yes, but that’s one the surface; we also look for special kids. Kids like us, the ones who are not….”

“Ordinary?” Hector caught the hint of amusement the word held and found himself wondering yet again if he would ever know the full story of Sarah’s run in the Labyrinth. She had told him most of it, he was certain; she loved to tell the stories of the gardener and the rock caller and the little knight and all the crazy things they came up against, but she always seemed to skip over the parts with the Goblin King. 

“Yeah, we find the kids, the ones who have had adventures too. There’s something about them that stands out, and it’s not just the crazy stories. Any kid can have a great imagination and invisible friends and things that go bump in the night, but the ones who’ve traveled are different… they’re, what’s that old-timey phrase Sarah uses tinged? Marked?”

“Touched? Fairy-touched, I have not heard that phrase for a long time.”

“Yeah, that’s it. It sets them apart and sometimes, depending on how long they were here and how big their adventure, it starts to make others uncomfortable. Those are the ones we help, the ones who are too touched and have a hard time adapting.”

“And what happens if they don’t adapt?”

“It’s not good… they have trouble connecting with others. People have a hard time relating to them, they struggle to make friendships or relationships, some of them struggle with holding down a job, some of them get depressed or get into other things and some of them just… give up.”

“And you say Sarah is adaptable?”

“She is, but that doesn’t mean it's easy for her. I’m used to it, she reminds me of all the fantastic things that happened to me, but it makes other people uneasy. She’s a little too  _ diferente _ . When we first met she was … well… it was hard for her; she was really lonely, but when we realized what we had in common she just lit up. She works so hard to keep the  _ diferente _ under wraps back home, it must be exhausting. You haven’t seen her, haven’t really seen her, in our world - she’s so much more Sarah here.”

“But since she arrived back she hasn’t seemed very happy. It’s all been glaring and arguing and glaring with arguing.”

Hector reached out a hand and clapped the man on the shoulder, “You know when I work with parents they frequently are most upsetting about how their kid acts at home. Oh at school or in the shops they’re perfect angels, but when they get home they’re holy little terrors. And it has the easiest answer… people act out where they feel safest. I never see Sarah get worked up like this at home. Around other people she has to be sedate, mundane; she can’t get too excited or angry or happy or the  _ diferente _ starts making people uncomfortable, but here.. Around you, she doesn’t think twice about what she thinks or says or feels. Isn’t that something?”

The Goblin King paused and looked behind them, “Something indeed.”

Sarah was finishing a bit of bread from her pack as she caught up to them, tearing off small chunks and rolling them smooth between her fingers before throwing them bit by bit across the tunnel and into the darkness.

“Leaving a trail of breadcrumbs I see.”

“What?” She stopped and stared at her hands, not quite realizing what she had been doing, “Oh no, not that it’s just… forget it. It’s silly.”

“I would like nothing more than to hear your silly story Sarah.” He could see the trepidation in her eyes and wondered if this was what the knave was talking about, this hesitation to share to talk about things that might seem a little too odd to those in the mundane world. He smiled, “Please.”

Her eyes lit up.

“Well, my grandfather was a miner, used to be a lot of them up where I lived and his father was before him and so on back I don’t know how long and they used to tell stories. They all had stories of seeing strange things in the mines and Grandpa used to tell me stories about the Knockers. The little creatures that lived in the mines and how if you made them angry they’d cause mischief at best - lost tools and lanterns that wouldn’t stay lit and if you made them really angry they’d cause cave ins, but if you treated them well they’d warn you and protect you. Grandpa swears he followed a little light that bounced in front of him once when he got lost. They were lonely in the mines so they loved stories and songs, but best of all they liked the bread so every day you’d eat your lunch and toss a bit of your bread into the cave for the Knockers and I thought…” she trailed off with a shrug.

Jareth smiled and conjured up a heel of bread, holding it as gingerly he might hold one of his crystals. He glanced over at Hector, who was about to pop the last of his roll into his mouth and cleared his throat. 

Sarah couldn’t help but smile as they stood next to her and threw their offerings into the darkness.

The small hunks of bread sailed away, swallowed by the shadows and the travelers stood waiting for a sign. 

Sarah sighed, “It was a silly thought...” she began and she started to turn away when something caught her eye.

Bouncing in the dark, where the cave wall should have been was a tiny blue light, like a little flame, skipping back and forth and from the darkness where the wall should have been came a faint, “ _ knock ... knock ... knock. _ ”

Sarah turned to the men, standing with mouths agape next to her, and whispered, “I don’t think we’re lost anymore,” as they stepped toward the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being something akin to a wizard in charge of an ever-changing magical maze I can't imagine Jareth is very good with directions..
> 
> "Where are we?
> 
> "Here."
> 
> "We're lost aren't we?"
> 
> "A Goblin King is never lost! He is always exactly where he means to be!"
> 
> :::pause:::
> 
> "Yeah, we're lost."


	26. On My Way Home

“So, like, what happens if you get hungry?”

Jareth stopped and stared at the man, his face drawn long in exasperation, “Then I eat, of course.”

“Yeah, but like people food or owl food? And what happens if you have to like… you know..”

“Okay,” Sarah exclaimed, stepping between the two men. “I think that’s enough twenty questions for magical kings tonight before someone gets bogged.”

“I can’t help it if I have a natural curiosity,” Hector said with a laugh. “Besides, the good king here would never bog me. We’re friends, aren’t we?.”

Hector reached out and jovially slapped the Goblin King on the shoulder.

Sarah folded her arms and raised an eyebrow, “Oh really?” She looked between the two men, one looking as sincere as an excitable puppy while the other looked as excited as a person with a toothache.

“I find you more tolerable than most,” Jareth said after a moment's thought. 

Hector gave a resounding, “Ha!” as Sarah stepped forward and looped her arm around Jareth's, “Well I’m sorry to interrupt this fine example of male bonding, but I need to borrow him for a while.”

In one move she swept the Goblin King up the dimly lit path a few feet away. Jareth looked down at her, arm looped in his as he spoke. “How can I be of assistance my dear?”

“Oh, that was just a lie to break up the conversation before he started to ask very technical and personal questions. Though…” she trailed off, “nevermind.”

“What is it precious?”

She stopped and leaned in closer to him, “What do you eat when you're an owl?”

He let out a low chuckle, “Things that owls eat, while I remain myself in many ways, the owl form is meant to mimic nature and that nature has its limitations. So I eat fish, mice, and other small game, occasionally lizards even.”

“What’s it like to eat a lizard?”

He leaned in closer to her conspiratorially and said in a most serious tone, “Surprisingly wiggly.”

They laughed and walked arm in arm a little further as Sarah continued to throw little bits of bread to the dancing lights in front of them when suddenly Sarah stopped, hands falling to her side.

“What is it, my dear?”

“Look.” 

Ahead of them the little blue lights bobbed and weaved, traveling along their unseen path until suddenly they parted swooping back around in a wave, but going no further. It was as if they hit a wall, a barrier of some kind.

“Did they lead us to a dead-end?” Sarah asked confused as she squeezed her little light crystal a little tighter. It glowed warmly in responses, and she could once again feel the slightest gentle pulse under her fingers.

“No,” Jareth said slowly, brows knit together in thought, “I think we are just where we need to be. I think this is the way out.”

“How can it be a way out? It’s darker than everything else. Shouldn’t a way out be a light at the end of the tunnel? Shouldn’t we be able to hear birds or feel the wind or the sun shining?”

“No,” Hector said solemnly coming up behind them, “that’s not how this place works. His majesty was right, this is a place where things get lost, where they go to be forgotten. I don’t think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for that. It’s why Nowhere is so hard to get to, it’s why they told me how to get here because no one wants to forget, no one wants to be lost in the dark.”

The trio stood in the quiet of the mountain for a while.

“No,” Sarah said at last, “no one wants to forget or be lost, but if we don’t get to Nowhere that’s exactly what’s going to happen to Yvonne.” She turned to her companions. “I understand that this is asking a lot, and I would never ask this of people I care about, so I’m fully prepared to go on ahead… alone.”

She could see Hector's eyes grow wide at her proclamation as he ran his hands through his dark hair. His eyes darted from Sarah to the darkness behind her as he drew his hands from his hair down his face, the movement she knew meant that he was nervous, unsure, scared. She reached out and touched his arm.

“Hector, it’s okay. You don’t have to.”

He slapped a hand over hers and squeezed, “No, Sar, I don’t want to, but I have to. This is kind of my mess and I’m going to see it through even if I’m muy asustado.”

“Okay,” Sarah said quietly before turning to Jareth. He was unreadable as he stared at the blackness in front of him. She couldn’t quite bring herself to look him in the eyes as she spoke, “It’s okay, you’ve helped us so much already and, well, this isn’t your mess. We’ll be fine, I think, and I promise not to rush headfirst into absolutely everything. I know you have a kingdom to run and the goblins have probably lit something on fire by now...”

“Do you wish me to go, Sarah?”

“What? I … no… that is… it’s just… I would understand if this was as far as you go.”

He turned to her now. “While you are probably right that the goblins have probably burnt down half of my Labyrinth by now that is beside the point I agreed to be part of this foolish quest of yours and I will see it through with you until the world falls down.”

Sarah felt her heart stop beating for a moment and the air hung still. She looked up at him, their eyes caught. Her face was all confusion and questions which he read so quickly and there in the dark he gave the smallest of nods in response and the light in her hands glowed warmly.

“Besides,” he said shattering the exchange with a wave of his gloved hand, “I can’t let the knave show me up now can I?”

He walked closer to the darkness as Hector came up behind Sarah who was still struggling to remember how to breathe.

“You’re going to explain what that was about right?”

“Nope,” she said as her feet remembered how to move.

The three stood before the darkness, the lights from the knockers urging them into the blackness and though her belly felt filled with lead she reached out for her friend's hand and could feel him shaking, and then without another thought she looped her hand tightly around his leather gloves and shut her eyes tightly as they stepped, together into the darkness.

And when she opened her eyes she smiled as her childhood bedroom came into focus. She was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what they say... sometimes the way forward is also the way back.
> 
> Hector is a cat who when approached by a growling dog is convinced they are the very best of friends
> 
> Well, now that my country isn't trying to go all apocalyptic I find myself with the mental energy to write. Honestly, this chapter was hard to write, I just didn't know how to get where I needed to go, but here we are! And oh, we are only a few chapters away from some of that glorious, slowburn payoff. It's almost here and I'm so happy to enjoy it for a little while before birdbrain mucks it up again (and you know he will, don't you?)
> 
> Thanks for reading this little story of mine! I would love to hear from you in a comment or see you in the kudos list if you're not there already.
> 
> **Also, this fic is dealing with more grown up stuff, feelings of being lost, lonely, depressed, feeling out if place, etc. So I just wanted to remind you that you, yes you, are wonderful and amazing and we're glad you're here**


	27. Too Much Recjection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Kind of heavy stuff in this one. Nothing graphic or violent, just heavy. Take care of yourself, we love you.

Sarah sat in front of her mirror and looked around, it was just as she had left it that night. A box of old stage makeup from her mother, clippings, and photographs tucked in the corners of her mirror, her music box sat at the corner. Behind her, the stuffed animals on her shelf looked out at her and the patchwork quilt her Nana had made still draped the bed. She realized in a moment that it was the mirror, her old mirror, the one Karen had broken her first year of college when she moved around the furniture after Sarah had gone away to school. 

“Are you there?” Sarah asked the mirror tentatively.

She waited for the fog to roll across and the image of the underground to come into focus and with it her friends. Her friends who had been there to help her through high school in those days when everyone else stopped believing and started growing up. 

The mirror shimmered and instead of her motley crew of friends there was her senior English class and her teacher, Mrs. Van Zeen explained that she wouldn't change Sarah’s “B-” on her creative writing assignment, a collection of stories they had told her about the Underground, because “fantasy stories were for children.” She felt a twinge at the memory as the mirror rippled again. 

Her friend came into view, but not the ones she had hoped to see, instead, it was Meredith Baker, who had been her closest friend since kindergarten, telling her “You’re just too weird, okay?” when Sarah asked why she’d been left out of another night out. Mirror rippled again as she turned away and Sarah remembered how she’d gone home and cried herself sick.

Next was Keith McMillan with his popped collar and stupid earing as called her a frigid bitch when she wouldn’t make out with him during “Back to the Future II” even though he had bought her nachos. 

“Stop,” Sarah muttered, feeling her eyes begin to sting with tears, “Please stop.”

The mirror rippled in response and in a moment she thought she heard a voice, gruff, but caring coming from the mirror, “Sarah?”

“Hoggle?” She reached out and touched the glass as if to reach through it and wear her fingers touched the glass cracked and still, the mirror rippled as its images came faster.

There was her graduation party, filled with her parents’ coworkers and distant cousins, as she flipped through an unsigned yearbook sitting by the front door.

She felt a familiar ache in her chest and a tightness in her throat, “Sir Didymus?”

The mirror splintered again, fractures radiating up and down its length. In the new shards of mirror different scenes played in front of her.

There she was walking behind the group of girls she had tried to befriend in freshman year, her presence tolerated but never encouraged. There were the parties where she had stood alone in a corner.

There was a slideshow of faces; boys and men that had pursued her. ‘

Mike, who had whispered sweet words in her ear, but only after a few drinks. Eric, who had been so attentive and sincere until they’d slept together. She cringed knowing who was next - Brian, who she had dated for two years, until one night when suddenly told her “We both knew this wouldn’t last … you’re nice Sarah, but I think we both knew this wasn't going to last forever” and left her at the restaurant to pick up the bill. 

She could feel the warm tears down her face now, even though she had long ago promised that she would never cry over stupids boys again.

“Ludo?” The tears clouded her vision as the mirror cracked, each break showing a new memory, too many to take in and yet she knew each one, felt each one.

There was her mother in quick succession packing her bags, a shower of drug story birthday cards stuffed with cash, and a quick autograph, the program for the first play that Linda failed to mention Sarah in her bio. There were Linda's boyfriends who ignored her as a teenager and paid too much attention to her as an adult, much to her mother's chagrin. There was the first time, but not the last she had heard “I never knew Linda had a daughter!”

_ Weird. Too much. Not enough. Immature. Too mature. Easy to forget. Used. Unwanted. Alone. Always alone. _

And she cried as something inside broke as the shards of the mirror fell around her. She sat surrounded by mirror shards, some big and some small but all replaying all those broken moments of her life over and over again. So many memories, so much she’d like to forget. She was afraid to move, afraid of all the sharp edges of the memories all around her. If she stayed put she wouldn’t get cut, if she just stayed here she wouldn’t get hurt.

“Sarah?” She heard the voice clearer now, she knew that voice. “Sarah!”

Hector was somewhere outside, past the mirror and he sounded scared. He needed her and she stood on instinct and recoiled as the millions of little shards cut into her. It hurt, all these little memories hurt so much.

“Sarah! What’s wrong?”

She reached out to the darkness where the mirror once stood whole in front of her and as she moved a sliver dug into her arm. Sarah reached down and pulled it out even though it cut into her hand, she saw Meredith again. Meredith, with whom she had spent summers drawing unicorns and building fairy houses, sneering at her.

“That’s why you don’t have any friends, weirdo.” Meredith, who made her feel so alone and friendless. Meredith, who had grown up faster and hadn't needed Sarah anymore.

“Sarah,” Hector's voice cut through; Hector who didn’t care if she was a little weird, who didn’t care if they watched the same things or talked the same. Hector just let her be her. “Sarah, I need you!”

She looked at Meredith in the mirror as she closed her fist around her image, “No, you’re wrong,” as she closed her hand and the piece of mirror crumbled like sand.

“Sarah, I need you to wake up. I can’t get to him, there’s something wrong. He needs you!”

Sarah moved faster now, dredging through the broken glass all around her, pull the pieces as they dug into her. 

A splinter in her leg was Mrs. Van Zeen, and Sarah thought ‘ _ damn she had horrible taste in books _ ’ as it crumbled.

She pulled a piece with the empty yearbook from her elbow. She didn’t even know where that was; it had been so long since she’d even looked at it and it shattered.

She brushed away college coeds whose names she couldn’t even recall. Who cared what they thought if they weren’t even worth remembering?

She moved faster now, the smaller bits of glass disintegrating at a touch as those memories nipped at her fingers only to blow away as she paid them no mind.

He side twinged and there she pulled a shard with Linda and dismissive costars blithely disregarding her dancing across its shining face. She held it tightly and it cut into her palm before throwing it with all her might. No, she would not be made to feel like nothing by someone who couldn’t be bothered to see what was in front of her. She thought she could hear her mother's laugh as it burst in front of her.

She was almost there, almost the mirror space, the pieces swirling around her, glittering like fine sand and she reached out her hand there was a bite just above her heart. Sarah looked down to see one last piece sticking out from her chest, balanced on a fine, fierce point above her heart. She pulled on it carefully.

There was that restaurant and there was Brian, once again telling her that it was never going to last and she waited for that pain in her heart that happened every time she allowed herself to think of him and there was nothing. She looked closer, and there he was, Brian, with his bad jokes and his inattention and his… nothing. 

She brought the shard up to her lips as if to tell him everything she had always meant to say, she couldn’t blame him for getting up and walking away that night. She was worth so much more than he or Mike or even stupid Keith McMillan could ever give her. What did it matter if they rejected her?

“I’ll wait forever if I have to,” she said to all those silly little boys she’d never cry over again, “it’s not long at all.”

And as it slipped from her hand she moved through the dark of the absent mirror and gasped as a cold air filled her lungs. Sarah flexed her fingers and felt her skin crack as she did. Bringing her hands to her face she watched as silver dust fell from her clothes, sinking to the ground.

She felt arms around her suddenly.

“Sarah! You’re okay, oh my god, you’re okay,” Hector babbled as he embraced her, “I didn’t know what was going on. You were there and then you started to .. _romper_... to break apart. It was awful, I thought you were going to shatter into a million pieces.”

“I’m okay, Hector, I’m okay.” Sarah hugged her friend back. “I just got a little … lost in my thoughts, I think. I could hear you though, and… Hector, you said something was wrong. Where is he? What’s wrong?”

Hector braced her by the shoulders and turned her, and for a moment she didn’t see anything except the dead, scraggly forest all around her. And then the trees moved in front of her. No, they didn’t move, they bent somehow. She turned her head and they bent again and she gasped as her eyes focused in front of her. 

There, reflecting the desiccated trees around them was a figure, shining like a mirror in the shape of a man in a cloak with a sharp nose and a wild shock of hair. There was no doubt; before her stood a crystalline Jareth, the Goblin King.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... that was cheaper than therapy.
> 
> This was a hard chapter to write, for starters more than a few of Sarah's memories were pulled from real life, and two, I had to write about four versions of how she escaped before it became obvious that Sarah is a self-rescuing heroine, thank you very much. 
> 
> And, well, I think it's obvious who the real damsel in distress is in this story.... and now we have to go rescue him. =)


End file.
